


Adjusting to our reality

by ElnaK



Series: Eternity for your pleasure [1]
Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Season/Series 02, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-20
Updated: 2015-04-25
Packaged: 2018-03-14 00:22:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 32
Words: 65,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3401591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElnaK/pseuds/ElnaK
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>begins post season 1, might or might not follow the actual story<br/>A simple friendship between a vampire and a vampire hunter can lead us anywhere, and right now, it's just going astray. Because the characters from the Vampire Diaries are so unlucky, they have every rights to be a little strange.</p><p>Summary 2.0: Damon and Alaric have to deal with the daily Mystic Falls' shit, their strange friendship, and things that the hunter seems to be keeping to himself. But while the vampire is investigating his strange behavior, realizing how much they care about each other won't be so simple...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Why was that?

**Author's Note:**

> I am really hesitant to post this, because, you know, english is by no means my mother tongue.  
> So sorry if there are grammatical errors or anything else, but right now, my best allies are the Internet and a dictionnary, and I tried my best.  
> Hope you won't mind, and, above all, that I didn't write too much atrocities.
> 
> And, well, I had so much fun writing this I couldn't let it go to waste.

Damon took a sip of alcohol.

He always did that when he didn't dare to stare, absent-minded, at Alaric. Not that he would want to do this, but lately, it has just happened more and more often. Why was that? He had no idea. It was simply bound to happen, sooner or latter. It had always ended up happening.

And that was always pretty awkward.

Last time Alaric saw that he was staring at him, he gave him such a glare!

The thing was that the vampire had killed him. And he had slept with, and turned, his wife. In fact, he pretty much was at the core of how fucked up Alaric's life turned out to be. Like, the second worst thing that ever happened to him.

The first one being, obviously, Isobel Flemming.

Seriously, what was the problem with that woman?

Damon was okay with the whole “IwannabeavampireIbegofyouplease” thing, he could understand that. Anyone who had seen him would want to come closer to his awesomeness. But he himself became a vampire for the sake of love. Not that it did him any good, but it wasn't the issue. If she had turned Alaric against his will, he would have understood. If she had him turn her in order to be with her loved one forever, he would have understood.

What she did after that, he couldn't understand.

Well, truth to be told, he had no say in the matter.

Because the worst of all was that, back then, he didn't give a shit about the husband. He didn't even know Isobel was married. Or maybe he did, and didn't give a shit nonetheless. Wasn't interested in knowing, or remembering, or caring.

Now he knew the guy, and couldn't say so anymore.

Damon had had his fair share of bullshit in his own love life. Katherine messed it up for sure by playing him as she did. So the vampire had felt strangely similar to Ric for some time already. He might even have felt, kind of, guilty. Just a little bit, of course.

He was Damon Salvatore, after all. He was supposed to be a heartless bastard.

He couldn't afford to grow emotional about a goddamn vampire hunter.

Once again, what was the matter with Isobel?

She had just pissed him off by threatening people he would never ever admit out loud that he cared for. Maybe that was the reason why he was searching for every single way to belittle her.

And one of those, surprinsingly enough, was listing Alaric's qualities and grumbling at how she had been a fool to get rid of such a fine man.

Rick was almost as awesome as Damon himself, the vampire admitted it after their first fight together. He was still the best one out there, but the man had earned his place in team badass. Considering he was only a human, Alaric was a damn good fighter.

Surely, back in the day, he would have had no difficulty to protect his wife if he had to. In a normal world, in a normal life.

Damon had seen the man with Elena's aunt, Jenna.

Ric was gentle, caring, not too intrusive, and willing to do so that it would work between them. If he wasn't so obsessed with hunting down vampires, he would have been a perfect man. Same thing with his drinking habit, it all came from Isobel's treason.

Discarding him was definitely a foolish move.

Damon thought of drowning himself in his glass of bourbon, because all this story remembered him of Katherine. But it was too much troubles, as he wouldn't die of it.

On the bar stool next to him, Ric was obviously considering the same idea, but with a much more fatal outcome. Either way, he wasn't paying any attention to his drinking buddy at this point of his drunkness.

Damon allowed himself to take a look at the man's face.

Comparing handsomeness, he guessed.

Alaric's features weren't striking or anything, but he was simply handsome. In fact, there was nothing beautiful about him, except his whole being. Every single thing, in its rightful place.

Nose. Eyes. Forehead. Lips. Jaw. One hell of a neck.

Damon bit down his own lower lip. Not the time, not the place for bloodsucking. Not the right person, either. Unless he wished to get staked. Or at least vervained.

And, damn, why would he want to tear into the hunter's neck?

Aside from the obvious reason, that is, to kill the one who tried to kill him. A classic move, according to his own, personal archives. But, well, they were even, since Damon had punctured one of Alaric's lungs, some time ago.

And really, if he wanted to kill Ric, he would more likely break his neck. Sounds way more damonish this way. The vampire only went at the throat of women, if possible young and beautiful, unless he had no other choice.

It was so strange, thinking of all these perfect, normal, logical reasons, and yet feeling the thirst growing, simply overflowing his mind.

Ric was startled by the sound of Damon's head encountering his glass of bourbon. He looked up from his own glass to see the vampire with his nose in a puddle of alcohol, clearly conscious yet unwilling to raise his head.

The glass was swinging on the board of the bar counter, almost empty.

Damon's nostrils were filled with the scent of bourbon, and that wasn't such a bad thing. For a second, he thought this could put his thirst away. So he planned on staying in this position for a little while. At least, in order to gain some time, and, maybe, get the black veins under his eyes to go back to their original state.

As he already pointed out, this was definitely not the right place to go vampire-mode, even if he restrained himself and managed not to go after anyone throat in the bar.

So the vampire stayed still for a while.

Alaric glanced at the rolling glass, at the black hair already soaked with bourbon, at the curve of Damon's nape.

Then he looked up to the barman, who was not even looking in their direction, as if he had received the order not to notice the vampire unless this one was asking for another drink. That was probably the case. And it would explain the fact that he hadn't ever interrupted them when they were talking about troublemakers with sharp fangs. A very cautious move from Damon, as bartenders tend to hear and recall more than they're supposed to do. Things would end up poorly if some of their conversations were spilled to the sheriff. Especially the ones concerning dead people, not-so-dead people, and people who-souldn't-be-dead-but-were-nonetheless.

All those things crossed Alaric's mind, but at this precise moment, the man wasn't exactly thinking. The alcohol had made his way to his brain since an awful lot of time, many drinks before, and was successfully blocking the path to realisation.

Who would have thought, looking at the motionless head, at the pale skin of the vampire's neck, at the ridiculous position, that Damon was a ruthless killer who had lived for more than a century and kept himself alive and attractive by literally vampirizing humans?

Not Alaric, for sure.

If he hadn't know, the mere thought of it would have make him laugh.

In another world, in another life.

Isobel's voice came to his mind, but he couldn't get a word of what she was saying. Not that he minded. After what she had done to him, after having seen her as she was now, Ric just didn't care anymore. In fact, it was even a little odd. He didn't feel like he had ever felt anything for her.

Which he knew was not true, but again, he was drunk.

Alcohol could do wonders to the brain.

Alaric laid his eyes on the pale nape of Damon once again, thinking at how his own wife used this body to escape from him. Maybe he had to find another body, one that would hold no meaning to him, so that he could free himself from her.

A one-night stand, not Jenna, not anyone for who he could have any feeling. Doing it once, out of any fidelity, any restreint.

And then, be free, finally, of what was constantly crushing his heart.

Be a whole new Alaric Saltzman.

He just had to destroy whatever was guarding what was left of his history with Isobel. Let it sink into depravity, stain it, desecrate it.

And then start anew, with Jenna, if she wanted to. Someone else, if things went this way. Or even no one, if it was how it was supposed to be.

But, whatever the outcome, get rid of his wife, as she got rid of him.

Eyes still set on Damon, Alaric frowned.

Did this mean he had to erase each part of his wife's treason?

If so, Ric would have to kill the vampire. After all, Damon was a part of this, wasn't he?

The hunter, a very drunk hunter, but a hunter nevertheless, looked at the right sleeve of his shirt, and wondered if he should better stake the vampire right now, when his mind was so clouded by alcohol it felt as if it couldn't be clearer, or wait a little, just to be sure of his decision.

He could feel the wooden stake against his arm. Lately, he had his devices on him even at school, while he was teaching, and not only a stake gun in his locker.

Definitely growing paranoid.

Alaric let go of the stupid idea, and put his hand on Damon's shoulder, making him shudder.

"Maybe you should raise your head now. You're beginning to attract attention."

After a moment of hesitation, the very handsome vampire raised his head from the bar counter. He had a confused look on his face, as well as dark veins and red eyes, and wasn't exactly certain of what he had been thinking up to this point.

Then his eyes met Ric's, and he suddenly felt better, without even knowing why. His features went back to their normal state. Except that he had alcohol all over his face, and some dripping from his hair.

That was quite a funny sight, and the hunter chuckled.

"Time to go back home, I guess."

"Yeah, guess so too... Not that I couldn't withstand another round, but I feel kind of ashamed of myself, right now. And Damon Salvatore doesn't know shame, so I have to be out of my mind. But no worry, my awesomeness will be back after a few hours of rest."

"I would never worry about that. You're too self-important to be a mess, right?"

Damon said nothing in response, and left the bar.

Alaric did the same, but he paid before leaving, what the compulsion maniac never did.

They walked without talking for a minute, when Damon stopped, lost in his thoughts.

What had come to his mind during the last hour was very disturbing. And it involved a lot of Alaric. But not the way it was before. Before this day, when he had thought about this man, it was mostly about ways to kill him over and over again, not because he hated him or whatever, but simply because Ric had a very funny ring. Damon wouldn't have materialized those fantasies, or at least he hadn't planned to do so, but it was a hell of a way to spend time.

But without the least warning, he had begun to think about how they could just be friends.

How did the vampire hunter end up in the friendly, but also prohibited, part of his brain?

Taken out of his thoughts, Damon was really surprised as he felt a breath along his neck. He stayed still, completely dumbfounded. And, he had to admit it, it felt strangely confortable.

Alaric took a step back, then grinned and said, just before leaving:

"You smell good, right now. Like bourbon."

And while Damon was pretty sure he was the less intoxicated of the two of them, he felt like he was the only one to be completely out of it. And, what, wasn't he the one supposed to be lurking around other people's necks?


	2. Stay here, please

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I intend to stick with Alaric/Jenna until her death, but these two will definitely get together at some point. Like, when I will have gotten past season 2. Alaric is faithful in my mind, Isobel put aside, because she's a bitch.  
> Friendship is good too, and this one is pretty interesting eitherway, so...

Damon was busy elaborating evil schemes about who know what when he heard the door opening.

He frowned for a second, wondering who would be dumb enough to come in the Salvatore's house without being invited when Stefan was away. In fact, even people who were actually invited in the house had to be stupid or compelled to come, because, well, everybody among those who were part of the supernatural farce of Mystic Falls knew that the vampire was something of a frantic killer. It was really a wonder some people still cared about him.

It might have been the reason why there weren't many of them.

Actually, there were only Elena and Stefan.

But the two of them were at Elena's.

So, who could it be?

Damon was soooo curious about it, and yet didn't want to show that he actually had emotions.

There were days like that, he just felt playful.

Drinking bourbon all morning might have had some impact on his mood, too.

He could have blurred to the front door, but it would have made too much noise. Drunk as he was, he had every chance to bump into something, such as a wall or even the door. If the person out there knew about his kind, the surprise would be no more. So he went to the entrance of the house, making the less noise possible, and stayed still next to the door.

Funny thoughts were rampaging in his brain, and the vampire guessed he really had had too much drinks. But, eitherway, there was no reason for him not to enjoy his drunkness.

So he reached for the door handle, pushed. The door creaked open.

But the visitor didn't come in. Damon's mind was so clouded that he couldn't understand why the whole thing might feel very suspicious. The vampire frowned, trying very hard to get why no one had entered yet.

Luckily, a voice came from outside and explained it to him.

"You know that doors opening by themselves are never a good sign in an horror movie, don't you, Damon?"

Some movies came to the vampire's mind, with open doors that slammed shut as soon as the character was in the house, and then the ghost freaked the shit out of the poor guy or the psychotic killer started dismembering him or the monster began eating him. He smiled when he came up with one where it was a vampire who drank and drank and drank and the victim just died of blood loss, because, you see, the bad guy was such a glutton.

Damon wasn't sure why, but right now, it sounded hilarious.

Alaric heard a chuckle coming from nearby. He sighed and came in.

To say the truth, he was kind of surprised to find the vampire laughing silently and alone in the hallway like an idiot, so stunned he could have been drinking for the whole morning, the night before that and even the afternoon that came before. Never before he had seen Damon in such a state. The teacher had even supposed that alcohol could do no more to his more-or-less-friend than make him do inconsiderate things.

Such as, going on a killing spree.

But always with a sharp tongue, and a seemingly conscious state of mind.

Because, well, sometimes he did things he didn't have to do. And that happened a lot more when the vampire was emotionally unstable, or drunk.

Alaric arched an eyebrow. Apparently, even Damon Salvatore could get stone drunk, and at this exact moment, he was on his way to.

When the fact that Ric had come in processed to his brain successfully, Damon blinked and began staring at the man. He pursed up his lips, came closer, looked into Alaric's eyes very cautiously, and stayed still. Maybe he was trying to see in his eyes which ones of his own thoughts were accurate.

Ric stiffened. He had vervain with him, but yet, Damon's gaze was disturbing.

"What are you doing here?"

The vampire's breath was mostly made of alcohol vapor, so Alaric took a step back.

"Keeping up appearances. I'm still supposed to be your brother's teacher, and you his guardian. Which means, I have to talk with you about his school attendance."

"You're joking, right?"

"You'd prefer me to ask for an appointment?"

Bells had begun a salsa in Damon's ears, which was very strange since the music wasn't supposed to be played with bells. Each of Ric's words were swallowed in bell sounds, and for what he knew, the hunter could have been talking about flying cucurbits.

Alaric made his way to the living room.

"As far as I'm concerned, I know why he hasn't been present, but I figured out I could come in, wait for ten minutes, go out, and then pretend we talked about it."

Alaric saw the mess that seemed to prevail in the room, yet said nothing.

There were emptied blood bags all over the coffee table, and three glasses in the middle. One was full of bourbon, another one was covered in blood trails, and the third one contained what seemed to be a mix of blood and liquor. Apparently, Damon had tried the mixture, hated it, and spat on the couch. Dozens of bottles lay on the ground besides, most of these half empty.

Ric sat down in an armchair and glanced up at the vampire.

"I see you've been busy since last time we saw each other."

"Yup. I spent a lot of time doing very productive thinking about a way to get Katherine out of my head for good. And I discovered that nothing solves humans and their fellow's problems better than booze."

"That's an answer I knew for long, said the teacher while throwing away blood bags. I have spent much of my own time testing that. Now will you be kind enough to let me help you?"

Damon stayed silent, lost in a world where fairies called him granddad and where he lived in a giant mushroom that had grown in the Statue of Liberty's shadow. When one of his eight daughters gave him a hug, he snapped out of it and felt really, really stupid.

He hoped he hadn't had this kind of dream each time he had gotten drunk in his life, since he knew that once in a while he did this with vampires several times his age who could easily take a look at his dreams. Some of them did it, for sure. Olia certainly did it. Damon could picture Pete doing it too.

If those two had seen him dreaming of rainbows and elves, he was doomed.

They never said anything about it, though.

But still.

Damon enjoyed to show off, he was always eager to grin and wink and laugh at others, but he hated being the fool. He had to be the one doing the bullying.

"Damon, still with me?"

Alaric's eyes and the vampire's met. His brain cooled off.

Right, Ric was here.

Everything would be okay.

Damon flickered, so tired he could have gone to sleep on the floor. His knees buckled, he lost track of time, and, for an eternity that lasted a single second he was serene.

The teacher caught him as he fell, wondering how many drinks exactly were needed to get such a drunken Damon. Dead-weight-Damon. But, again, a vampire was technically dead, so, no news.

The guardian-to-teacher talk would have to wait. Anyway, there would have been no guardian-to-teacher talk. Some bourbon party would have been more plausible.

Alaric sighed.

Damon was a grown-up, he had been one for much longer than him, and yet the hunter had to babysit him. Actually, the vampire hunter was going to babysit a vampire. So much for irony.

Seriously, the two of them should stop drinking.

Ric took a deep breath, and went to the staircase. Putting Damon to bed was the best thing to do, but doing it was not so easy. As a plain human being, the hunter had average strength, and pulling dead-weight-Damon up the stairs turned out to be as much of a pain as what he thought it would be.

He succeeded somehow.

He put Damon to bed. The older Salvatore really didn't have silk sheets.

Alaric was about to leave when he saw the vampire's peaceful face. Sleeping. Dreaming.

Were his dreams made of bloody shades? Or were they as any man's dream? Did he dream of happy endings? Or did he only have nightmares? Was the vampire only into his own satisfaction? Or was he just unable to voice his concerns?

Ric already knew that he wasn't such a full-fledged villain. What he wasn't sure of, was whether or not his soon-to-be-friend, because he had to acknowledge it at least, he was growing fond of Damon, was capable of remorse.

Damon quivered and frowned. Something unpleasant in his dream, perhaps.

His eyelids were heavy as hell, his body cold as a corpse, which was not normal at all with all the blood he had drunk earlier, but his mind was clear again.

He found nothing sarcastic to say.

Right. Clearer than before, at least.

"Stay here."

No please, no thanks. Not an order, not a request.

Nothing more than the expression of a wish.

Alaric sat down on the bed.

Damon's muffled voice was heard once again, coming from beneath the sheets, uncertain about wanting to be heard or not. Damon's voice was not used to sound sweet from decades of ripped throats and mean comments. Damon was not used to be truthful and honest. But Alaric could hear a genuine feeling when the vampire talked again, almost to himself, but aware that the teacher could hear him.

"Katherine is everywhere. I look, I see her. I watch, I see her. I glance, I see her. Why can't she just leave me alone?"

Exhaustion.

Days of solitude, weeks of constraint, months of ersatz, years of hope, decades of forbearance.

And then nothing.

"And now I see Elena, so much better than Katherine, less dangerous, too, but so kind, so attentive, and in love with my brother. Once again."

Ric said nothing. Nothing could be said.

"I never intended to hurt him. I was simply in love. I don't want to play that game again."

"You don't have to."

The teacher almost saw a smile through the dark sheets. An old, tired smile.

"Go find someone else, with no resemblance to Katherine or Elena, and try to love them. No compulsion, no cheating, no shortcut. It won't be easy, there will be times of doubts, there will be days when you'll feel like nothing makes senses. But in the end, you'll find a perfect match. You've got time, haven't you?"

Alaric could see that Damon was a little less tense. He himself should be feeling unwell, but no, he didn't. He knew he should have felt bad for giving advice on the grounds of his own love life. But things were going well with Jenna, Isobel was out of the picture for now, and, he hoped, for ever, he had finally gotten past his wife, and Damon needed comfort with Katherine's return to Mystic Falls.

Ric felt the urge to pat Damon's head, just for the fun. The conversation was becoming way too serious and he was pretty sure the vampire was in no condition to retaliate.

A soft laugh came from under the sheets.

"You're sure you aren't a centuries old vampire? Because I could swear you are inducing sweet dreams in my mind right now, instead of the habitual hangover nightmares."

Alaric chuckled, uneasy. What could he say to that?

"I am kind of a calming presence."

Silence.

Alaric waited some more time, no more words.

The teacher slowly rose, prepared to leave.

A voice prevented him from doing so. A sweet, weak, shy voice.

"Stay here, please."

A request.

Ric stayed some more time, silent, sitting on the bed, next to the form of Damon under the sheets.


	3. Nothing more, nothing less

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> set in 2x03, oviously

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm in an awfully good mood, just finished a 393 pages story that took me 3 years to write, so I came up with... this.  
> This... thing.  
> It looks like a chapter of some story.  
> I believe we can sum it up as a hint of how fucked up my head is.  
> That's not exactly violence, I guess, but well. Yuck. And yet hurray.  
> Understand me if you can. And if you can, you're warned. I'm strange, I know it. Do you know if you are?  
> So now, I will shut up.

Alaric took a look at Isobel's stuff in her office / room-filled-with-every-supernatural-bullshit-the-world-could-imagine / whatever while waiting for the young woman, Vanessa Monroe she said she was called, to come back.

Now that he knew that vampires and witches and doppelgangers and who-know-what-else were real, he couldn't help but wonder how many of the tales that were told to children had a kernel of truth in them.

Ric glanced at Damon and Elena. At this exact moment, he was with two living evidences of a supernatural reality. In fact, he might have been one of those, too. Couldn't forget he died once, could he? If he could still do the math right, there were one living evidence of double occurrences, even if the show would have been better if he could have gotten Katherine on stage too, and two not-so-dead evidences of supernatural occurences, one as a guy who should be dead and wasn't thanks to a magic ring, and one as another guy who was actually dead yet had a beating heart, could move, speak, think, although in strange ways sometimes, and casually drank blood for breakfast, lunch and dinner, in the room.

Hurray for realism.

Then he realized he was in his bitch-of-an-undead-wife's office and he couldn't care less in the world. He had made progress, as he thought. Great.

Right when he had this positive thought, and that was some achievement to have a positive thought about Isobel, Miss Monroe came back with a crossbow and shot at Elena.

What? How? Why?

No time for answers, but clearly, something was odd there.

Thankfully, Damon took the crossbow bolt instead, blocking the way for another shot.

Not that he was happy that Damon was physically hurt. Well, maybe a little, to be honest. But it was way better than taking back to his girlfriend a dead daughter-in-law who happened to be the niece of the said girlfriend. Alaric loved his life. Really. Yet, sometimes, he had to remind himself how farcical this life was. Trying not to get too used to it, or one day, he might not be able to dicern what was really wrong from what was kind of strange.

So, no time to think, right? Ric was just beginning to befriend with his wife's kind-of-murderer-but-not-exactly, and well, he cared about Elena and about humans in general, so maybe he should do something before the woman could get a better shot and ended up killing someone.

So he pinned her against the wall, took the weapon away.

Damon snorted. For now, the pain was distracting him from his next objective, which was clearly beheading Miss Monroe as a compensation, but he was seriously considering the idea.

A glare from Ric wiped the idea out of his mind. Killing the girl apparently meant being staked in the guts, if the hunter didn't go for the heart. Which was not sure at all. And Alaric was way more efficient than a tiny bookworm who got herself a crossbow.

That would have been a pity. Just when their friendship started to make some sense.

Elena took the bolt out of Damon's back with little efficiency, but it was better than nothing. The vampire felt the wood break into pieces, leaving splinters here and there in his internal organs, and winced thinking of how he would need to have his own hand wandering off in his stomach to get them out. Trully wonderful. Dream of his live.

After some nice explanations, with a lot of “it's not possible” and other variations of incredulity, everyone was mostly calmed down. So they did exactly what they were supposed to do: Alaric was being serious, Elena was being upset at Damon, Damon was being a jackass, and Vanessa Monroe was being very enthousiastic about all this.

On top of being themselves, the four of them managed to get some data about werewolves and doppelgangers, so everything was great and all, but before going back, Damon really needed to get those splinters out of his body.

The vampire discreetly left while Elena was still talking with Miss Monroe.

Looking for the bathrooms, he flinched when a hand came down on his shoulder. Had his senses become dull or what? It was just Alaric, and yet he hadn't noticed him until the last moment.

Ric frowned at the reaction, but said nothing.

"I'll help you with that."

"With what?"

"You think I didn't see how Elena pulled the bolt out of you? There's no way you haven't some more wood left in here."

Damon made a face, which one Ric could not tell exactly, because the vampire's facial expressions chart was so wide. What the hunter could say, was that there was some suprise in it.

"You get that it's a bit narrow in this?"

Ric gave the toilet booth a knowing look, and the hell if Damon had any idea of what it meant, but the hunter was definitely judging the booth with the eye of an expert, and grinning.

"No worries, it'll be big enough."

The vampire frowned. He went in nonetheless, curious of what would happen after that, and very eager to get rid of the splinters that were tickling his internal organs.

The space in the booth was narrow, he had that right. But Alaric hadn't been wrong either: both of them had enough space to turn around.

Damon sighed, took off his shirt and leaned over the toilet bowl. No need to paint the room scarlet.

"Maybe you should take yours off too."

The vampire couldn't not see the abs when Ric got rid of his jacket and shirt. Not so long ago, he was still kind of flabby. Not so much, but still. When the hell did he have time to train, with every supernatural shit that happened lately?

If Damon wasn't already inchangingly perfect, he would have been jealous.

Well, perfection was relative. As for him, the outside was perfect, no question, but the inside was a mess, both physically and psychologically. He was working very hard on the last part, though.

Nothing could be seen of the pain he was enduring at the moment, but he knew pretty well facade and reality were not always the same thing. For now, the only thing he could feel was that his viscera were tearing apart and healing at the same time. Maybe that was the reason why he hadn't heard the hunter coming: too preoccupied by his guts aching like hell to notice his friend's arrival.

"And what do you think you could do for me?"

The vampire was a little skeptical.

It wouldn't be a problem. It was normal to be skeptical. Ric just had to do so that the vampire wouldn't have any time to react. So he took a blade he kept in his left pant leg and stabbed Damon.

The vampire reacted a little late, and not well. Instinct took over, from what the hunter could see, and Damon went all vampire-mode. But he restrained himself, whatever the reason was, and kept his struggle to a minimum.

"Help, remember? And it's not like you'll die because of such a wound. So keep your fangs out of my sight."

Damon was bewildered. First of all, he didn't understand how bleeding out would help him to remove splinters. Moreover, Ric was way too calm about this, as if stabbing people was a hobby he used to practice twice a week. And, ultimately, the hunter was freaking awesome while doing it.

Maybe natural born torturers were real.

But no, that wasn't Alaric's case.

The vampire could see it in his eyes. The teacher was nothing like a psychopath, it was simply that he didn't fear blood. Ric was doing what had to be done, and felt okay about it. Nothing more, nothing less. He didn't seem to enjoy inflicting pain or death, but didn't hate it either.

"So? What comes next?"

"I suppose you know exactly where the splinters are?"

"I could give you a GPS location if I needed to."

"You will."

Damon looked at him, incredulous. What exactly was Ric planning to do with his body?

The teacher's right hand went to the wound.

Alaric gave one last glance to Damon, making sure he wouldn't back off suddenly. Given the little space, they would most likely fall upon each other and redecorate the whole booth with bloody prints. It being a public space, it would be a hell to explain if anybody came and saw them cleaning.

The vampire felt Ric's fingers separate the wound's edges, crawl inside his flesh and touch solfty his internal organ.

That was gross. Freaking gross. Freaking awesomely gross.

"I... think I get what you're trying to do. Left, near the stomach."

It was definitely one of the crudest thing he did in his whole life. It also hurt like hell. But the hunter's touch was gentle, even though he favored efficiency over comfort. And when Damon looked into those eyes, he could only trust him.

Damon chuckled despite the situation. The man he trusted the most in the world at that precise moment was the one who tried to kill him not so long ago. One of the those who tried to kill him not so long ago would have been more accurate. Lots of people had tried to kill him during the last months.

Ric looked up, a bit baffled.

"May I know what's making you laugh?"

"Nothing."

A sharp pain startled the vampire.

"You got one."

Slowly, Alaric pulled the splinter out of the wound, left open thanks to the knife.

A tiny, riduculous wood splinter that had almost made Damon cry. Really.

"How many left?"

"Three, I think. Not sure, though. The pain is terrible, you know."

"Well then, better go back to work."

It took some time, and Damon found himself thinking that Elena might worry about them not coming back, but it had to be done. When Ric got the last splinter, just before he took it out of the vampire's body, Damon pointed out that they hadn't talked since some time already.

"With none of us wasted, I mean."

"Is that my fault if you're never serious, unless you had half a bottle of bourbon messing with your head?"

"No, but you're one to talk."

Alaric ripped the splinter out.

Damon growled. That was unnecessary.

The hunter ignored him and took back the blade that he more or less washed in the toilet bowl. Blood had been spilled all over the seat, and Damon looked paler than ever. But he felt better.

The vampire watched Ric as the man looked at his bloody hand with annoyance.

The silence was unbearable.

"You know, I'm trying very hard."

Ric raised an eyebrow, but didn't stop to contemplate the length of his arm that was soaked in blood. There was a sink outside of the toilet booth, but he feared to go out in such a state. He couldn't even put his shirt on without getting blood all over it. Neither could Damon, to say the truth.

"I mean, all those things you said about forgetting Elena and Katherine and finding someone completely different. But it's not so simple, and I don't want her to hate me so I try to be funny even though I'm a jerk and I just find everyone else boring or already taken and..."

Alaric got him to shut up by covering the vampire's mouth with his own hand. Damon was going to complain with an explicit groan when he heard it too. There was someone in the room. Which was to be expected, since they were in a public toilet booth. So he shut up.

If anybody saw them, blood all over the teacher's hand and red water in the toilet bowl, shirtless in the same booth, silent, there would have been some misunderstanding, for sure. What kind of misunderstanding, Damon wasn't certain. But misunderstanding, anyway. No danger. Why would anyone come in?

And while these thoughts were making their way to his brain with no particular reason, Damon stiffened. With all the blood loss, he was craving for blood. Shit.


	4. Deep beneath the surface

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally getting somewhere... because yes, I intend to write a story with plot, or more likely plots, and as everything is always about Elena in the show, here it'll be all about Alaric or Damon, even though I might use the actual story here and there. Just, not the parts that I don't like...  
> And I'm so sorry, but I can't help misreading what I wrote, which is pretty abnormal, and I keep seeing wordswith double meanings, and it kind of leaked in the chapter.

Alaric's hand went up to his own lips, and the hunter made the sign to stay quiet some more time while letting go of Damon's mouth.

The vampire had bloody handprints all over his face, and for once, he was not the one responsible for that. Ric actually saw him change, but still said nothing. Red eyes and dark capillaries were all the more reason not to attract attention. Because, well, there were already four shoes that could be seen from outside the booth, and that was odd enough. If anyone saw them, things could go somewhat astray. Because it definitely looked like they were making out. Using red paint. Very fluid red paint.

Hell, he could think it, if he couldn't get himself to say it, for various reasons.

Blood.

And all that while trying to remain silent.

So, no matter what conclusion would be reached, they were being pretty suspicious.

A_ They would be categorized as a gay couple. Could be way worse than that.

B_ One of them would be accused of assaulting the other one. It began to feel uncomfortable.

C_ Alaric would be arrested for attempted murder. And with no wound to prove anything...

D_ Maybe they would be considered a couple of gay serial killers?

E_ Let's stop the stupid listing right away before it gets even more messy and problematic. Besides, Damon the compulsion maniac could still do compulsion maniacs' stuff.

The thing was, Damon was really thirsty, it could be seen at the way he frequently stopped himself from simply attacking his friend.

Who said vampirism was the same as a drinking problem? You don't die from lack of alcohol, or at least you shouldn't. A normal, sober human being could just look away from alcohol, but he couldn't stop drinking water or eating food just because he wanted to. Here it is. Blood was vital for a vampire. Or else he would desiccate. And as forcing yourself on a hunger-strike was against survival instincts, any vampire would just go on a rampage if he lacked blood.

Damon wasn't there yet, hopefully, but damn, he could feel it coming.

And Ric was here, within a meter, blood pumping from his heart, healthy human, liver apart, but well, didn't matter with bloodsucking, so everything was good, living blood bag, warm, appealing blood running through his veins and arteries, the never ending rhythm of warm blood invading every capillaries and then going back to the heart, red and oxygenated blood, the delicious scent of warm blood, the music of blood flow alluring the vampire, the strong, fierce fragrance of the much desired blood, mesmeric warm blood asking to be drunk...

But no.

That was just him craving for blood, nothing else. Damon could handle craving. Most of the time he didn't, in any other circumstances he'd just find an unknow woman to drink from. But he could handle it.

And if Alaric had a knife in his pant leg, who knew what else he had with him? Surely one or two portative stakes, hidden in his jacket, which was within easy reach.

And also, there was that: Damon wouldn't have bet that the man, if he didn't kill him on the spur of the moment, would ever forgive him for drinking from him.

Damon would never admit it, but he needed a friend.

He wasn't asking for much.

The vampire only wanted one friend. Not two, five, eight or twenty-three. Just one.

He had had friends back in the day. Not so many, for a hundred and seventy years old. But he had known people he cared about, besides his brother and Katherine, over the years. All of them died at some point. Killed.

Sunlight. Stupid accident.

Stake. Stupid hunter.

Fire. Stupid scientists.

From time to time he had also noticed that he cared for some human, out of the blue. Usually, when that happened, he'd run away in a blur and never come back. Humans were weak, humans were delicate. Humans would die at some point, either killed or because of a disease or from great age. Humans wouldn't always accept him for what he was if they weren't compelled. Some tried to kill him, even though they were supposed to be friends. Some outed him, which was worst most of the time. Either for him, almost staked or burnt or whatever, or for them, put in an asylum right away.

Alaric tried to kill him too, but that was before they became friends.

With Ric, everything seemed to go backwards.

Relationships.

Time.

Even Damon.

Because Damon could feel it. He was becoming a better man. Or vampire, for what it mattered. As he had been once.

It was certainly not Stefan's influence, since his brother didn't manage to get him out of his hatred for more than a century. It might have been Elena's, like, Elena surely had something to do with this, but she wasn't the only one to influence him.

Alaric had his say in the matter.

Maybe the hunter wasn't even aware of it.

Damon gulped. At some point, the teacher would go grey, then white, then dead. They always did this, those filthy humans. Just when you began to care about them, they died.

But at least, he was protected by the ring. He wouldn't die because Damon had pissed off the wrong vampire or werewolf or witch. Not permanently, anyway.

It was something.

What would come out of this friendship, he didn't know.

What would happen as time would go on, he didn't want to think about it.

What would he do once Alaric would be no longer, he didn't even consider it.

He needed a friend. One such as the hunter, as hilarious as it could be.

The teacher looked at him in the eyes.

Damon shuddered.

There was something with those eyes of his...

The vampire couldn't tell what. But there was something off with them. How could they be so calm, and yet so determined? So intidimidating, yet so laughing? So caring, yet so terrifying? Maybe Damon was just being delusional. Because sometimes he felt as if there was nothing in those eyes.

Emptiness, deep beneath the surface. A lot of things here and there, on the first, the second, the third layer. Nothing beyond.

The blue-yet-not-quite eyes of the teacher were definitely trying to say something to him.

Damon made his “what?” face.

Alaric cocked his head, eyes wide open, but the vampire still had no idea of what he meant.

Still silent because, hell, the guy that had come in sure took his time washing his hands, the hunter pointed at his own neck. This time it's was Damon's turn to make eyes as big as saucers.

Ric couldn't really mean it.

But blood had rained down from his wound as long as the hunter had kept it open, and the vampire was really diminished. Habitually, he just took out whatever had been pushed into his flesh and then he healed. Habitually, he didn't have to deal with such massive blood loss.

Alaric could see that his friend was hesitating. In other circumstances, he would have been quite pleased with this. But right now was not the time, and he'd rather be a blood donor than letting Damon free on a university site when he was running out of blood.

He also trusted the vampire not to drain him, and if he did, he still had the ring. He wouldn't dare to say the same if the victim was a ramdom student with no ties to his friend.

So be it, he would be the martyr of the day.

Ric knew exactly when Damon made his mind, and stiffened a little. He might be a volunteer, he didn't feel confortable with the act nonetheless.

The vampire leaned closer to him, stopped a moment, took a deep breath, certainly restraining himself from simply biting down and tearing half of his best friend's neck at the same time.

Then Alaric felt two sharp fangs break through the skin of his neck.

It was a bit painful, but not as much as he thought it would be, when investigating his wife's notes and belongings. As a vampire hunter, the questioning was legitimate. It was a highly risky line of work, and the odds of being bitten by a vampire were much higher than average.

Then again, if this had happened the first time the hunter went after the vampire, Damon would certainly have been rougher on him than he was at the moment.

The weird part of the act was certainly the fact that a vampire was actually sucking up his blood. The whole aspiration thing was strange, and he began to feel dizzy.

Damon felt better.

Ric's blood was highly nutritive, and he could almost sense an aftertaste of bourbon, which wasn't exactly a surprise. Obviously, competiting with vampires on a daily basis could only be done by having balanced meals. And obviously, living the hellish life of Alaric Saltzman on a daily basis required a lot of alcohol, in order to leave the day's shit behind when he went to bed.

The vampire eventually noticed Alaric was losing vigor and stopped drinking.

But he didn't move away. The least he could do was to keep him from falling on the floor.

“You're okay?” he asked, speaking very low, in case the bloody nuisance would still be there, just outside of the booth.

“I'll survive.”

The teacher's voice was pretty low too, but Damon suspected he couldn't have talked any louder if he wished to.

Alaric took a deep breath, rolled his eyes as the world went back to spinning, and managed to get on his feet without his friend's help.

When they got out of the booth, someone was there, staring at them, but it was only Elena. How she figured out they would be there, Damon and Ric had no idea, but well, what's done is done.

Elena frowned. She clearly didn't expect to see what she was seeing.

“Which one of you killed the other one this time?”

“None of us. I was just giving my jacket to Damon. He can't run around with a bloody T-shirt, can he? So now, if you'll excuse us...”

And Alaric pushed Elena out of the public toilet, gently but firmly.

What he told her wasn't exactly false.

“Put this on, and close it, please. I don't want to see campus girls fainting as we go back to the car”

Alaric washed his arm cautiously, put his shirt on, and stayed behind to thank Vanessa Monroe and give her some advices about her non-involvement into the supernatural side of the world. Better safe than sorry.

They had barely left the university that Miss Monroe went back in, wondering how all this could be real and why no one had told her anything about it sooner. Sitting down at the desk of Isobel's office, the young women took some time to think, then looked around some more.

She had exactly seven books underneath her arm when she finally thought about leaving for the day. Closing the door while holding onto the books revealed itself to be a challenge that she didn't exactly fulfill, but as she leaned over to retrieve a very old book about witches, she saw it.

There was a piece of paper sticking out of the desk drawer. A white, tiny piece of paper.

Miss Monroe drew the door once again, put down the books, and tried to open the drawer. Getting no result, she decided that it was pretty suspicious and she would pick the lock if she had to. Shaking the drawer until it came loose revealed itself to be enough, and Miss Monroe searched vigorously the inside, until she finaly found an old photo stuck between two piece of wood.

She immediately recognised the man as Isobel's husband, Alaric Saltzman. He seemed to be so much younger, a bright smile on his lips, yet the photo was nothing more than four years old. The man must really have had it rough after his wife's presupposed death...

She was going to close the drawer and leave, feeling a bit guilty to have snuck into their privacy, when her eyes fell upon a book called _Family Curses and Cursed Families_. Wondering why it wasn't on the shelves, but hidden in a drawer, she flipped through it.

Or at least attempted to.

Right in the middle, there was a bunch of missing pages, probably hand-pulled.


	5. A reminder of the accident

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I miss Dalaric bromance so much...  
> I'll write my own if I have to. Oh, wait, I already did.

Alaric got out of the car once Damon and Elena had been sucessfully delivered to their families.

The ride had been shorter than he expected it to be, but it didn't prevent him from getting back pain.

Oddly enough, going back home always felt shorter than getting away from home. Maybe that came from the fact that you know exactly where you're going when you return. Or maybe not. Eitherway, it was just like that.

The teacher had a little smile. He really began to consider Mystic Falls home.

He surely didn't expect to when he came in town, half a year ago. After all, what he wanted back then was simply to stake some vampires, teach classes, and stake some other vampires.

It had been quite a shock to recognise Damon Salvatore as the bastard who'd killed his wife and probably thrown her body in some dumpster.

The worst he had to deal with, the night it had happened, was that Isobel and Damon were having sex when he came home. In their bedroom. As if it was okay.

Ric knew it was strange to be more angry about this than about the fact that his wife was most likely dead, killed by a shitty vampire. But he also knew that he didn't deal with death the way most people did. He wasn't really happy to know that, but what could he do about it? He had always been that way, and was likely to remain so until his death.

He had been sad. He had mourned.

But rage was what got him out of bed for months after the event.

Rage and Saltzman were never a great combo.

Rage and Saltzman combined were the best way to get someone killed. The question being, who? Him? Some guy that would have pissed him off at the wrong time?

As a teenager, Alaric did sports. A lot of sports. Fighting sports. Team sports. Individual sports. He was good at it. Learned fast. Faster than anyone else. As if he had some kind of instinct for using his body the right way, without hurting himself. He had become strong. And there had been some incidents. Nothing serious.

And then there had been the accident.

Alaric had never gone back to sports. He had devoted himself to his studies. Reduced his passions to History, enjoyed the other subjects as much as he could. Spend hours and hours at the library.

He had lost all of his former friends. Made some new ones. Not so many, but that was better than nothing. After what had happened, he had been lucky some people would still talk to him.

Then he had gone to college. Duke University. He had run away from his family, in a way. His mother was great, his father too. His father's family, on the other side, was a reminder of everything he hated about himself. A reminder of the accident.

At Duke, he had added Isobel to his passions.

And now, he was back to sports. Only, he used it to be able to kill vampires. Not exactly people, but yet. All this because of Isobel.

He had sworn he would never train again. Sworn he would keep his body in the most banal condition possible. And yet there he was, training.

Alaric hadn't trained for almost twenty years.

When Isobel went missing, he researched vampires for months. When he first found out about Mystic Falls, he went back to sports. Three mere months after that, there was a vacancy for the history teacher's spot. Just his luck.

So what? How many months had it been? Eight? Nine? Whatever the number, it wasn't even a year. Yet he was almost back to how he used to be, before the accident.

He had no regrets. He had no remorse. What happened did happen. He had to do it, or else someone innocent would have died. He did what needed to be done.

He had no problem with this. And that was exactly what he had a problem with: not having a problem with something so blatantly wrong was the problem.

He would never forgive himself if it happened again.

Ric tried not to think about the assignement Damon had just given him. A barbecue with his girlfriend, a vampire and a very-likely-to-be-werewolf wasn't exactly what he needed to get his worries out of his head. No, what he needed, right now, was a bath, and a good book about the Watergate that he had started reading after his last kill.

Alcohol helped him to forget that he had a hellish life, and books helped him to un-notice that he didn't give a damn about murdering, even if the victim was a not-exactly-human-creature who had certainely killed humans. So three weeks ago, the teacher had bought a whole bunch of history books about just anything, from ancient Egypt to modern Australia.

There were only two books left.

So Ric ran a bath, and immersed himself in hot water.

Hot water was all he needed. Hot water, and a book.

Reading while bathing wasn't exactly his thing, but well. Reading freed his mind, bathing freed his body. He couldn't choose between either option.

There were so many things that needed to be freed in his whole existence, from the day it had been decided that he would live to this present day of sorrow.

 _Impeachment_. The water was so hot, it was almost unbearable. _Nixon_. Cooling down, much better. _Deep Throat_. Lukewarm, still had time. _1972_. Somewhat chilly, now. _John Sirica_. He should really get out before he catches a cold.

Alaric reached out for a towel.

Everything was okay. He had no need to worry. Some bourbon, and everything would be fine. Alcohol would make the world a better place for a few hours. A friend, and everything would be great. If only his life could be so normal.

He'd stay home this night.

He heard his cellphone ringing.

The teacher wrapped up the towel around his hips, checked he wasn't soaking the floor with foamy water, because yes, shame on him, Alaric liked bubble baths, so what? and went to answer the phone that he had left in his jacket pocket.

Alaric frowned. He didn't recognize the phone number.

He picked up the phone.

“Hello.”

_“Vanessa Monroe speaking, I snatched your phone earlier and memorized your number.”_

Because that was a normal behavior, right?

“And what may I help you with?”

_“You can't. But I found a hidden book in Isobel's office, about curses. There's a chapter about werewolves, but nothing really new... wait, there is this plant, wolfsbane... seems to be kind of the same for werewolves as vervain is for vampires.”_

“Thanks. Anything else?”

Ric heard her stay silent for a moment, as if she was reflecting whether or not it was of importance.

“Spill it, we'll see then if it's useful.”

The student cleared her throat.

_“Pages were ripped out. Two chapters, from what I can see in the table of contents. One is about the Petrova family, doppelgangers referred. The other one is about some Falkenbach family, also called...”_

“...Great Assassins. I see. Well, then, I shall hung up, Miss Monroe. Once again, don't get yourself in this mess if you have a choice. Knowing about vampires considerably shortens your life span.”

Isobel knew about the Falkenbachs. The teacher's life really sucked.

Knocks on the door.

Jenna had never come to his apartment, which was somewhat strange, but since he kept crossbows, stake guns and vervain grenades in false bottoms all around the loft, he would not complain about it. Their relationship was already unclear enough without taking the vampire hunter part into account.

So it was most likely not Jenna.

But Ric couldn't think of anyone else who knew were he lived.

Well, that was depressing.

So unless someone from school had something to tell him, and there was no way someone would come all the way when they could wait for the next day, at school, the person waiting for him to open the door was mistaking.

He slightly opened the door.

“The hell you're doing naked?”

Right. Damon goddamn Salvatore. Damon knew where he lived. Alaric wasn't sure how he had figured it out, but once in a while, the vampire would come and take him for a drink. No pun intended. The fact that the hunter had offered his blood to his friend was because it had been an emergency. He wasn't planning to do it ever again. Why would he, anyway?

Maybe Damon had followed him going back home one day, wondering if he should better kill him right now or let him live for another day. Because yes, his brain seemed to have forgotten, but there was a time when they were at each other's throat.

...And he did it again. Vampire's humor was rubbing off on him.

Alaric put his serious-and-a-bit-annoyed face on and opened the door a bit more.

Damon looked at him from head to toe.

“I'll correct myself gracefully: the hell you're doing almost naked on your doorstep, Ric?”

“I just got out of bath. To what do I owe the displeasure?”

“Don't be a dick, Ric. Oh, wait, it rhymes. Bad omen for you, man.”

“You're the dick.”

“Hell right I am. May I?”

Alaric looked silently at the vampire.

“Come on, I don't want to kill you anymore, you don't want to kill me anymore, what prevents you from letting me in now?”

“The fact that you tend to snap people's neck on a whim?”

“I don't!”

The hunter gave him a look of disbelief.

Damon averted his eyes from him, then talked, almost ashamed. The important word was almost.

“Maybe I do, but I'm worried about you. You're sure you do not want magical blood medicine?”

The vampire was really glancing at his own teeth marks on Ric's neck. And not like he wanted another taste. Simply as if he was actually worried.

“I mean, you managed to hide it from Elena with your shirt, but if anyone... And it's not like you can wear a scarf to hide it. I don't want the sheriff to think the history teacher was used as a blood bag and start to have some of her men following you around, searching for the big bad vampire.”

Alaric smirked. Sure, Damon was not worried at all. He had just been thinking about Mystic Falls supernatural community's safety. The hunter could so not hear concern in his voice.

“Thanks man but no thanks. Though I appreciate the gesture.”

Alaric widely opened the door, and took a step forward, so that he would be just on the border of the ownership barrier.

Damon saw right through his game. Came closer, until he bumped into the barrier.

That was awkward.

“I can stay here all night if I need to. Or you could let me in.”

Ric could feel the vampire's soft breathing. Damon didn't exactly need to breath, but did it out of habit. That is, he could chose not to, but did it naturally, unless he prevented it.

They were so close that eye contact was nearly not figuratively speaking.

Damon could hear his friend's pulse. Calm. And he smelled of soap. Maybe he should take a step back. He wouldn't.

“You were on the phone a minute ago. Who was that?”

The hunter raised an eyebrow, not sure about how Damon came to this question.

“I'll cover your ears with glue one of these days. It was Vanessa Monroe, she told me she found a book about curses with missing pages. The Petrova chapter, as a matter of fact.”

“You gave her your phone number?”

“She gave it to herself all on her own. Don't ask. A drink?”

Damon nodded. He seemed bothered, but said nothing. Ric put some clothes on, with a high collar jacket, and they were on their way to the Grill.


	6. If he wanted to

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> moved on to 2x04.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'v got a shitty day. So there is some shitty chapter.  
> Mason pisses me off.  
> My right eye encountered a door handle something like a week ago. I might get a scar and I'm awfully happy about it. I must be nuts.

Damon was messing around with Mason Lockwood more than he should have. Dog and wolf jokes, really, who was he kidding? Even Jenna was aware that something was going on, Ric could see it in her eyes.

He didn't like to hide stuff from her, but his last love-interest, whom he had married, for God's sake, had left him because of some supernatural bullshit. He wasn't willing to give it a try once again.

Not that he feared Jenna would leave him to become a vampire, he'd have to be completely insane to believe such a thing, because this turn of events would be so out of character it didn't even fit in a fantasy. But as he said Vanessa Monroe, knowing of the supernatural was kind of dangerous. He definitely didn't want Jenna to die.

...And he didn't want her to think he was a completely delusional vampire nerd who used to go around staking people while being persuaded they were centuries old monsters.

Alaric may have some mental issues, but he wasn't mad.

The teacher almost burst into laughter in the middle of a game. Jenna seemed to be really into it, Damon used it to tease Mason, and Mason did his best not to show he was kind of annoyed. And here he was, Alaric Saltzman, vampire hunter, high school history teacher during his spare time, thinking about the negligible fact that he almost lived up to the standards of psychopathy.

He glanced at the white board where Damon had drawn an almost wolf-like creature dancing in a tutu. Subtlety wasn't exactly what he excelled at for the time being.

Damon though he was doing his part just great, but, werewolf sitting on the couch put aside, there was something that bothered him about Ric. He was kind of pretty certain his friend was withholding information from him.

What exactly, he had no idea.

He had tried everything. Heart rate was steady. Eyes never looked away. Answers to his questions were always given in due time.

It was like such a thing as a hesitation had completely disappeared from the hunter's body language.

And that was exactly what gave Ric away.

Who could be so perfectly and genuinely attentive that they were never ever caught off guard? No one. No vampire, no werewolf, let alone a human. There definitely was something Alaric was being cautious about, but the hell if he knew what exactly.

Being so unfazed should be forbidden. Damon hadn't found out anything, not even a hint. Seriously. There were no topic of conversation, no situation, no word that triggered the slightest reaction.

The hunter had been very inconspicuous when he had began to plot his revenge on the vampire, but that, that was the real deal. His prudent approach from back then was a piece of cake compared to now. And back then, it had been about his wife's murder. Not just any shit. What could possibly make Ric so wary of himself, Damon had no idea.

The probability for the teacher to have a dirty little secret just soared in the polls.

Damon was so curious, and damn, how did Alaric manage to get him so curious about so many things? that he almost forgot to piss off Mason Lockwood for a whole minute.

He had to catch up, seriously.

The dinner went smoothly. Elena and Caroline, who had joined them, were smiling almost honestly. Alaric, Jenna and Mason were exchanging high school and college stories. Damon was listening. He laughed a lot at the teacher who had spent most of his time locked in his room or at the library and didn't dare to bring his acne outside of a dark room. Some dog jokes were exchanged, but Alaric gave him a dark glare and he stopped.

Later he and Mason were alone.

The man just blurted it all out, and the vampire was pretty surprised to know that werewolves could more or less recognize vampires, whereas vampires couldn't even tell their own kind. He should definitely try to know more about that when he has time.

Right now, he was busy with the do-I-or-don't-I-kill-the-wolf game?

It was a very simple game. You just had to close your eyes and pick something among the cutlery.

A spoon, life.

A fork, try again.

A knife, death.

Fork. He'll try again later.

Ric entered the room, slightly concerned. If his friend was going to murder someone this night, the hunter would have appreciated if he did not do it in his girlfriend's house. Or in his students' house. Or in his daughter-in-law's house. In other words, in the house they all were in right now.

The first thing he saw was Damon giving Mason Lockwood first and then him a crooked look while holding two silver knives.

“Ric! Grab these!”

It took him half a second to get what the vampire was doing.

Swearing in a low voice, Alaric raised his arm to catch the knive that was dangerously on its way to his left shoulder. He knew he should have ducked. But no. Instinct.

He stayed still for some time, taking a deep breath. He would not give in to anger.

The knife was stuck between his index and middle-finger. No cuts.

Right. This time, he could say he was definitely back to how he was before the accident.

“Damon, have you perhaps gone mental? Don't ever do that again.”

The vampire could see the void in the hunter's eyes. Those were no good news. Maybe he'd better behave. Alaric was right. It was dangerous. He wasn't even sure why he did it in the first place.

Then it was time for Damon to say goodbye and leave, right behind Mason. A silver knife in his hand, he waited a minute, then stabbed the werewolf in the chest. Burrying a blade in the heart of someone was something he didn't do often enough. That was pretty enjoyable. Metal against flesh. Flesh pierced with metal. Sharp, cutting knife pressed into a bloody wound.

He was barely readying himself to go back to the boarding house, whistling, when he saw the werewolf remove the blade from his torso and throw it away. There was blood on the knife, just as it should be, but the wound was disappearing.

Shit. No silver allergy, then.

And even better, a threat. Made an enemy tonight, blah blah blah. The vampire could already hear Stefan's sermon. Diplomacy. Agreement. Cease fire. Not interested, thanks.

Damon did this thing with his eyes, as they said, and wondered if killing Mason Lockwood anyway, snap his neck, for example, was such a bad idea. But Saint Stefan would be a pain in the ass some additional hours if he did. So he didn't.

He was being a good, obedient, vampire brother. Maybe he could have a susucre as a reward.

Mason smirked. He had been right about the vampire. He was an arrogant douche.

“You really don't have to be a monster to be inhumane. You and that Saltzman guy found each other just perfectly.”

Damon frowned. Why was Alaric dragged into this, exactly?

Mason sneered, very pleased with himself.

“Don't tell me you never saw his eyes?”

“What about Ric's eyes?”

Damon was so not in the mood to play the stupid game. Since the wolf had decided to be an asshole, and no, Damon wouldn't acknowledge any responsibility in this decision, either he would spill it, either Damon would make him spill it.

“Come on, unless you're blind or madly in love with him, you surely noticed the way he's completely unreadable if he doesn't want you to know what he thinks.”

“That doesn't make him inhumane, just surprinsingly good at lying.”

“And there's also the fact that he has this emptiness in the depths of his eyes.”

Damon restrained himself from reacting. He wasn't the only one who had seen it, then...

“You vampires use compulsion, but he has authority. Natural, overwhelming authority. Earlier, he told you to stop, and you obeyed. You weren't forced to, but you did.”

“I did it because I didn't see any valid reason not to do it.”

Damon snorted. He wasn't a slave, he was a goddamn vampire. He did what he wanted, when he wanted, and no one would ever dictate his behavior. If he did what Ric had told him, it was only because he agreed with him. He had gone to far.

Mason Lockwood was only bullshitting him.

But was he?

The wolf squinted, amused as he could sense how much Damon was feeling uncomfortable.

“You don't get it, do you?”

“You're only talking shit, so no, I don't get it. At all.”

“Let me explain. Humans usually don't get it, when they're with people such as your pal, because their instinct has gone extinct for too many years. Even vampires don't usually get it, they are so full of themselves and rely too much on compulsion. But werewoves are instinctive creatures, we work with our guts, and as I can smell Death oozing out of you, I can tell you that this man would be a shark if only he wanted to.”

The vampire ignored the bait. He had had his share of dumb moves for the night.

Yeah, Damon was dead, so it was pretty normal for him to ooze Death. Thank goodness he didn't stink of decomposing corpse. Anyone who had a problem with this could say it to his face, or just shut it. And franckly, the werewolf was a shitty werewolf, so he hadn't a say in the matter.

And where the hell did Mason think he was leading this conversation?

“If he wanted to, you said so yourself. Doesn't mean he is.”

“He's oozing Death too, you know. Not the same way you do, but he does.”

“Might be because I killed him once.”

The vampire really tried to sound convincingly trivial, but he himself wasn't convinced. He kind of had remorse about this kill, now that he knew Alaric so well. Maybe his best friend ever.

Which reminded him...

“I still can't believe George was the same as you are... maybe he triggered his curse too, for what I know. Best friend my ass.”

“So you're from the mid-eighteenth century. Good to know. And for your information, he did. Now, let's go back to our discussion, shall we?”

Mason was really getting cocky, and Damon thought he could still kill him right now. After all, on a regular night such as this one, he was just a supernaturaly strong and fast man with healing capacities. Capacities that were nothing near as great as a vampire's. Blow off his head, and he would be nothing more than a bad memory.

Damon wondered what werewolf's blood would taste like. Certainly horrible, with an aftertaste of fur. The vampire might has well try to get a drink with Ric for what it was worth.

He rejected the idea of taking a sip on the hunter, who was most likely to stake him in the guts if he only dared to try. But hell, he couldn't forget Ric's taste.

...And that was definitely not the time to think about it.

“We were having no conversation. You were simply trying to bullshit me about Alaric, even if I still don't get why. Now I'll be going. I don't want to hear you babbling nonsense anymore.”

Damon turned away. This talk had been useless, and now he was in a bad mood.

He didn't halt when he heard the werewolf's voice one last time.

“When I said he smelled of Death, I mean that he has already killed people.”

The answer to this one was easy.

“Of course. He's a vampire hunter, after all.”

Mason stayed silent.

Damon would have loved to see the surprise on his face, but he didn't want to show he was actually uneasy enough to need to prove he was right. Right about what exactly, he didn't know. But right anyway. Damon loved being right.

The annoying voice raised once again to the vampire's great displeasure.

“That does not mean he never killed a human. This man has no feelings, I tell you. The day you wake up, a stake sinking in your ribcage, pushed in by your very friend's hands, you'll remember I warned you.”

The werewolf really enjoyed pissing him off.

Maybe Damon should repay the favor, and kill him on the spot.

But he went back to Elena's. He had silverware to give back.


	7. He and I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You never know when a sheriff in your house's basement might come in handy.  
> After 2x05, I believe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm fed up with being myself lately.  
> Maybe I should try to be someone else.

Damon was feeling way too tired for a vampire when he walked in the Mystic Grill.

He hadn't exactly been surprised by Liz Forbes' reaction when she had found out about him and Stefan.

But still. He really meant it, that they were friends. He was surely one of the most manipulative kind of friends that would ever walk the Earth, but he cared about the sheriff. He even had evidences to substantiate: first of all, she was still alive. Even though she had let Mason Lockwood poison him with vervain. Even though she had trapped him. Even though she had tried to kill him and his brother. And he had been nice even when she had begun to insult him.

For Damon Salvatore, that was something new. With so many reasons, he usually would have killed her right away. Because, let's be realistic, it wasn't Caroline's whining that would be able to stop him if he decided to kill the sheriff.

Speaking of people that should have been on his blacklist for their actions and yet weren't, Alaric was sitting at the counter as the vampire had expected.

As he got closer, Damon was surprised to see that the teacher was reading a book with a worried look on his face.

Usually, Ric graded papers while drinking and nothing else.

But Damon wouldn't complain about this sudden change of habits. That was something he could decipher, unlike the unfazed demeanor he had been confronted with for days now. An incomprehensible but possible hint was always better than no hint at all. You can't try to decrypt what is not.

Alaric closed his book when he spotted the vampire coming, but did not put it away.

Damon sat on his favorite bar stool.

“Fancy seeing you here.”

The teacher gave him a far from convinced look.

“We meet at the Grill everyday, Damon. What do you want?”

“Why do people always conclude I want something when I come to them with small talk?”

“Because you always want something when you come to people with small talk. So spill it out.”

The vampire pretended to be outraged by so little faith in his goodwill, then dropped the act and asked for a glass of bourbon.

“What I want is for you to tell me what the hell you've been hidding from me, but as you don't seem to be willing to share, I am simply going to ask you about your reading.”

Alaric glanced at the book then handed it to the vampire.

Damon couldn't know what he was searching for, and nothing could help him figure it out.

“I ordered the book Vanessa found in Isobel's office. The interesting chapter is basically a synthesis of what was written in the book you found about the Petrova family, but there are passages about what can be done with a human doppelganger and magic. It's rather ominous.”

“Vanessa? You're already on first name ground?”

“She calls me every now and then, it's not like I can help it.”

Damon frowned as he leafed through the book.

“Should I tell Jenna to worry?”

This time it was Ric's turn to frown.

“To worry about what?”

Damon looked up at him, half amused, half concerned.

“So I'm the one who should be anxious. Maybe she's aiming for the best friend spot instead of the lover spot.”

Alaric rolled his eyes and took a sip of bourbon.

They kept on drinking for some more time, but in the end Alaric left with his book, saying he couldn't concentrate with Damon around, which was true enough.

Damon ordered one last drink then went back to the boarding house.

Once again, Ric had evaded his question.

Maybe it was time to talk to a specialist. Good thing he had one under hand. You never know when you'll need a sheriff in your basement.

When he entered the cell, Liz stiffened, but she looked more resigned than vindictive. She had hated vampires since forever, but she loved her daughter, even if their relationship was not the best. It was normal to be confused or abashed.

Damon was the one who asked her to give a look at the history teacher's past. Nothing had come out, besides the fact that his wife had been reported missing in two thousand and seven.

But there had to be something somewhere that would allow the vampire to finally understand what was going on with his best friend. Ric was exactly the same as before, they talked, drank, laughed together, but there was something strange that popped up from time to time.

And Damon didn't like it. Usually, when people weren't honest, something bad was to be expected.

He sat at a relatively respectful distance from the sheriff.

“What you told me about Alaric, was it all?”

“Why, you don't trust your drinking buddy anymore, vampire?”

Damon sighed.

Liz had been quite cooperative up till now, too shocked to have discovered that Caroline was actually dead and that she had been a vampire for some time already.

“Come on, Liz. I'm still me. In fact, I'm even more myself than your daughter is herself, since I was already a vampire when we met.”

“You're a killer.”

And there it was. World's oldest argument ever.

As if the sheriff did a thorough investigation before she decided to kill a vampire. Maybe this one had never killed anyone, or at least anyone not going after him or her. Maybe he or she still had a family that was happy enough that he or she was kind of alive. Vampire meant non-human. Not always inhumane.

“And you're not helping. People like you tend to make us murderers. That's exactly what happened when my father killed both his children.”

Liz grew pale.

Damon and Stefan Salvatore. 1864. Had died during the night of the fire. Reported as victims of the vampires that were supposed to have been burnt in the church.

Those Damon and Stefan Salvatore.

“Giuseppe Salvatore killed his own sons?”

Oh, right. Elizabeth Forbes would never be able to kill her daughter, even though she was a vampire now. And back then, Stefan and him were still human. No matter what the situation, it was murder.

Parricide.

“We were young, foolish, and in love with a vampire. That was enough reason for him.”

Damon sneered, but that was not as convincingly casual as he tried to make it sound.

“To bad for him, Katherine had been feeding us her blood for weeks. Stefan didn't know, obviously, but I did. We woke up. Worst surprise in his life, when Stefan went to see him and told him he wouldn't complete the transition.”

“But you brother is...”

“Stuff happened. Our father tried to ensure his youngest son would die by staking him, but Stefan defended himself instinctively, father was injured, and the smell of blood was too enticing so Stefan lost it.”

Ultimately, it was all their father's fault.

Liz vowed to never go down that road with Caroline, knowing it was a futile promise as she would soon forget everything, even this resolve. But as a mother, she needed to feel as if she wasn't a failure who would be able to kill her own flesh and blood.

She watched the vampire go with a somewhat mixed expression on her face. Sure, he was a monster and had killed people, but at the same time he was not such a bad man. Or at least he tried not to be one. He had only been alone for too long, hoping for something that was never meant to be.

Not long after his departure, the sheriff heard footsteps. Those belonged to Alaric Saltzman.

“What did you tell him?”

Liz looked at the hunter with a disgusted face.

“What I know. Which is pretty much nothing.”

Alaric leaned against the wall.

They were the only ones in the boarding house, he had carefully checked. Stefan was with Elena at the Grill, and Damon had just stormed out. Why exactly the teacher didn't know, but he could make an educated guess. Investigation and all. Good thing Damon gave him the keys, in case of emergency. Damon investigating him was an emergency.

“I first suspected nothing, when Damon came to me and asked me to look into your background. But now, I see I really overlooked a lot of things. I don't even want to know how you got into this.”

Ric had a sarcastic smile.

“He turned my wife because she begged him to do it.”

Liz stiffened. None of this made sense.

“Maybe you thought I was some kind of psycho that loved to hang out with murderous monsters? Sorry to disappoint, but if I am indeed slightly insane, I don't enjoy slaughters. And I believe Damon is making progress about that, so I am willing to give him one more chance. After all, he and I suffered the same kind of treason from a woman, and I know what it feels like at first. If I hadn't been human when she... went away, I might have gone ballistic too. As a matter of fact, I did. Solely, his fits of rage are more consequent than mine, and so he did horrible things when I merely switched my extracurricular activities to vampire hunting.”

“You...?!”

Liz was astonished to know there was a man in town, someone who was not part of the Founder's Council, who was used to staking vampires in his free time, and that she never knew about it.

The sheriff started to realize how she was so not up-to-date.

“I am the one who killed Logan Fell.”

Silence.

“So you didn't tell him anything?”

“As I said, I do know nothing.”

The hunter came in the cell, locked the door again, and looked into her eyes.

Liz wanted nothing more than to look away. But she couldn't.

There was something with this man's eyes.

Most of the time, they were calming, even laughing if he was in a good mood, or broody, restless when he was annoyed. But from time to time, they seemed so inhumane it would make anyone uncomfortable. Not the slightest emotion could be seen. The eyes were there, ocular globes, blue irises, black pupils. The person to whom they belonged was not here. Alaric Saltzman could not be seen in this body that was his.

Alaric Saltzman could be seen in this body that was his.

But he was not the man everyone used to know.

“And do you really know nothing?”

“Is there something to be known?”

“This kind of lies I can easily read, Mrs Forbes. And you are not the best liar I've met in my life.”

The thing was, the teacher was surely the best liar in Mystic Falls when he was serious about it. Which was rarely the case. He didn't like to lie to people. But sometimes, you had to do things you don't like.

The sheriff looked down, then looked up, defiant.

“The only sure thing I can say is that, when I called your parents to assure that you were really Alaric Saltzman, your mother froze on the phone the moment I said I was from the Sheriff's office. Her voice trembled until I told her I was simply trying to contact you because we had found identity papers in your name along with some phone numbers.”

The hunter's face was so expressionless it actually gave her the creeps.

“I'd want to say that I would appreciate it if you refrained from calling my family from now on, but since you will soon forget everything that happened these last days, there's no point to it. However, if you haven't said that to Damon already, I suggest you keep it to yourself.”

Alaric got up, left the cell, locked it again, and then went away.

As much as she didn't like to agree with a vampire, Elizabeth Forbes had to give it to Damon that there was something suspicious about the way the man acted.


	8. Something sour in his laughter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I too want to know what happens to a severed arm...  
> And I guess that for him to do such long studies, Alaric's family isn't so badly off.  
> Anyway, there is more to it than I showed in this chapter. Unless it's what I want you to think?

Alaric stared blankly at the paper he should have been trying to grade.

The world had been mean to him lately.

First of all, his wife was as undead as one can be. Then, some of his students happened to be or to have become supernatural beings. He also had become friends with a vampire. After that, a hundreds of years old hag with the same face as his kind-of-illegitimate-daughter-in-law-if-that-even-existed had come to town. To end with flourish, some werewolf had come back to Mystic Falls and now Vampires & Co were searching for a dog leash because no one in this freaking town was able to live peacefully with their fellows supernatural neighbours.

Peace and love, man. But no, peace is too simple, there's nothing funny about peace, so let's kill each other first, then we'll think of a way to coexist. It's always much easier to coexist when there is only one of the protagonists left.

And the worst of all, was that all of this was threateningly digging up his past.

Because Alaric Saltzman had a past. Isobel wasn't the only part of his life he was willing to erase.

Saltzman.

Damn name.

Damn family.

He had never done anything wrong. The accident was not something wrong. Even if you considered it the other way around, it was still the only thing that could have been done. Hell, he even was kind of a hero, in a way. But if the accident came to light, the teacher wasn't sure this town wouldn't do everything so that he would never even get a place anywhere.

Graduate of Duke University.

Laughable human high school history teacher in a little town in the middle of nowhere.

Anyway, it was something of a miracle that he was even that much of a respectable person. If he had sticked to his family, he would have been much more. By running away as he did, not only he had denied the Saltzmans' wealth, their name and their connections, but also he had accepted to deal with the Saltzmans' legacy all by himself.

Which shoudn't have been a problem, if not for Isobel, her obsession and her treason.

Ric had been keeping himself in control for years. No sport, no fight. Every once in a while, he had snapped, and succumbing to provocation, had beaten the crap out of some idiot. But he was in no condition when it happened, so the guy was still alive, and Alaric was really glad for that, even the time he had gotten a black eye in the process.

The one that had thought he would be an easy target usually ended up in the hospital, but at least he was still alive.

Don't ever piss off a Saltzman, it's bad for your health. Even an out of shape Saltzman. Should have had some T-shirts printed.

The teacher was working on his self-control. As long as he stayed calm, nothing bad could happen even if he had to defend himself. But if he lost it...

Rabid people are prompt to do things they will later regret. But not every rabid person had the physical capacities and skills to make almost any human being powerless to do harm.

That was exactly why Alaric had never drank after the accident. That was exactly why Alaric had stopped doing sports after the accident. That was exactly why Alaric had sworn he would get out of this cursed family, and never set foot in Boston again.

He had kept his word for the third part of his oath.

Isobel had taken him out of the right path. He had begun to drink so much he was never sure of what had happened the night before for a full month. He had gone back to sports.

For now, there had been no casualties. Let us pray things would remain the same.

A window opened.

The teacher didn't look up.

He already knew who it was.

Because, seriously, who else could have guessed that Ric was at school in the midst of the night, squinting at essays that did never get any better even if he focused in a last attempt to believe miracles really existed?

The hunter heard the vampire come near him.

Damon sat down on a desk. Alaric wouldn't be the one to scold him for not sitting on a chair.

He watched Ric doing his teacher's stuff without saying a world until the hunter collapsed on his desk. Some papers flew off, and Damon caught one.

“I can't get anything done this evening.”

“Well, considering one of your students thinks that World War Two happened during the eighteenth century, I can't really say you're missing something crucial.”

“That one is Peter's, I am wrong?”

Damon took a look at the name written on the test paper, and was surprised to see Ric was right.

“You're not seriously telling me you can guess who did what from just an error?”

Alaric, the nose still glued to the desk, handed him a bunch of tests. Damon made three new attemps, and each time the teacher guessed right. The vampire got a bit upset, and switched to simply reading a line from a paper. Ric got it right five times out of six.

“I can't believe it...”

Ric gestured toward his bag that was laying on the floor.

“Bourbon and glasses, if you want some.”

The vampire didn't need to be told twice.

The two of them drank a little then the teacher put the bottle back in the bag. He had to be operational for the next day, and none of them was really in the mood to cloud their minds too much. Still, a little alcohol was appreciated.

“I don't get it, Ric.”

“What?”

“With what money do you buy that stuff? Aren't high school teachers supposed to be eternally bankrupt? And yet you have some expensive stuff and your loft is nothing if not expensive.”

“I'm not paid much for my job, but I have some personal money.”

“Family?”

“Yes and no. They're sending me cash every month, but I don't want anything to do with them, so I keep it and don't use it. But before I left, my aunt had me open a bank account for later, on which she put some dollars as a part of her husband's inheritance. He liked me a lot, and he was only part of the family through marriage, so I use it for extras.”

“Your family must have quite a lot of money...”

Damon would never have thought he wasn't the only one to be stinking rich. Yet he had to admit that when Alaric deigned to wear something else than the basic shirt-pants-jacket, his suits were pretty well cut, even if they were not as showy as the Salvatores'.

“You have no idea.”

Alaric gazed into space.

“Well, my parents aren't exactly rich, but those that live in the main house are loaded. And as my aunt is the head of the family... The thing is, you stay in the family, you make a lot of money. You don't, you're provided with enough money to live a decent life even without working very much, but you're not associated to the benefits. My father went away as soon as he could, and I did the same. It's not highly regarded by the others.”

“I'm getting the feeling you're telling me about some organized crime family...”

Alaric laughed, but there was something sour in his laughter that made Damon uncomfortable.

“I swear to you it's not the case. But we're somewhat... strange. Some of us just want to run away, while the others argue that the best way is to stick together. Our name is not well known to the public, which make us very insteresting partners for transactions that are not to be leaked too soon, and we proved our reliability on many occasions.”

“That definitely sounded suspicious.”

“Being famous is not always the most efficient path to wealth.”

“And you sound as suspicious as your family right now. They don't play the stock market, at least?”

The teacher made an outraged face, barely concealing his hilarity.

“Not to my knowing, but I haven't gone back to Boston since 1993. I'm not sure of anything anymore. The only people I met these last years are my parents, and some of my cousins, most of them being in the same situation as I am.”

Damon said nothing for a while.

Maybe it was only that.

He knew how much growing up in a dysfonctional family, let alone a wealthy family, could ruin a man. Alaric seemed to have had a rather normal childhood, since his immediate relatives weren't exactly part of the problem, but if some aunt or uncle came to visit with cruel words and expensive suits, the happiness bubble could pretty easily be blown up.

Yet that didn't explain the heavy impression that emanated from Alaric when the teacher was seriously pissed or scarily neutral.

Never mind.

He had gained enough informations for now. He'd better not push his luck.

Now was the time to confess his sins. Or, at least, one, because if he had to do so for everything he shouldn't have done in his long life, they'd still be at it for the teacher's next birthday.

“I stole your book.”

Ric looked at him, eyebrows raised.

“You felt that your personal library wasn't enough anymore?”

The vampire had expected something more... well, he didn't know, but something more anyway.

“ _Family Curses and Cursed Families_ , I guess that's the one you're talking about? I've seen you do it and chose not to say anything.”

“Why?”

“You'd have taken it anyway.”

That wasn't completely false, but yet.

Alaric was playing with a grey pencil that went back and forth between his figers. At this time, it looked really like a small sized stake and Damon really didn't know what to think of it.

“Found anything interesting?”

“Not that you overlooked, if that's what you mean.”

The vampire then noticed that his friend was wearing his poker face. There was something more to this question. Unless Ric wanted him to believe there was something more to this question. The vampire refrained from showing how much he was pissed by all that game of dissimulation. Instead, he tried to recall the things that he had cast aside as not relevant.

The thing was, that they were irrevelant. So why would Alaric bother with them?

There were things about werewolves, and how their story was so old that only the families that had been exterminated could be almost surely identified.

There were things about Elena and Katherine, how they were not the first ones in the family to be doppelgangers, even though the author had lost track of the Petrovas after the slaughter in 1492.

There were things about the Folegatti, another family of doppelgangers, however males, that had disappeared in the early seventeenth century.

There were things about strange curses, which affected the people of one family without the need to be triggered, such as making them unable to swim or immune to any form of supernatural occurences. The Kangs, the Sakias, the Falkenbachs, the Ioannis. All of them were supposedly human, but most of them could be turned or mixed with others species if a witch married into the family for example. The Singhs would inexplicably die as soon as their blood was altered, preventing them from becoming vampires, or having children with another species.

Or at least that was what the author of the book had found out.

“I'm not sure that half of this is true, anyway. That's the thing, with the supernatural: you can't know unless you saw.”

Alaric stretched. He really needed to get some sleep.

“I checked the facts. If some can't be properly investigated, there are others that seems to be oddly true. Anyway, I've always wondered: if I cut a vampire's arm, does it grow back or just cicatrize?”

“I won't sever my arm for you to see if it regenerates.”

“Such a pity.”


	9. Honesty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> somewhere between 2x10 and 2x11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soon, soon... I will soon introduce an original character, but not yet... for now, drunkards will do.  
> Gosh, I want to write about her right now...

They had been at the Grill for almost an hour.

Damon and him usually talked little during the first hour. Neither of them was good with honesty. They had to have some alcohol in their system before considering any informations exchange that had nothing to do with an immediate threat upon the peaceful city of Mystic Falls.

Alaric suspected that he hadn't completely threw the vampire off the trail yet, but he also knew there were secrets he would never reveal, even under bourbon's influence. Maybe, one day, he'd tell Damon about it. But he'd do it consciously, and not under anyone or anything's influence.

After all, it wasn't as if the vampire had never done worst than what he did.

One day he'll tell Damon about it.

But it'll have to wait.

It's not that he didn't trust the vampire. Ric did trust Damon. Up to some point, at least. Or, more accurately, he trusted him about some things, and didn't about some others. He could have bet his life that Damon would do things right to keep Elena alive. He wouldn't have bet one buck that Damon would do that ethically.

That was definitely something the hunter could say to his friend.

But the problem wasn't Damon.

The problem was himself. The problem was the kids. The problem was everyone else.

Don't say anything, and it'll be the same as if nothing had ever happened.

Ric was silent, watching his glass being refilled once more with amber liquid. The last days had been quiet for him, except for Katherine compelling Jenna to stab herself, but well, for Mystic Falls, that wasn't much. No one died, in the end. So, quiet, for him. Not for Damon: Elena being kidnapped, the Original Elijah, Rose...

Damon had almost forgot about his friend's strange attitude. Almost. Maybe it was time to go back to business and harass Alaric some more. The only thing that was keeping him from doing so was that for now he had no idea about what to do.

“So, you and Rose?”

The question surprised him. Damon hadn't thought that Ric knew about it.

“Rose and me nothing. We're just on the way to become friends.”

“Better than nothing, no? You need some friends.”

“I've got you already. One friend is infinitely more than what I had for the last ten years. But yes, Rose is kind. I don't know, maybe it's just pity, but I feel like if I can't help her to get better, at least I should be able to do so that she won't get worse.”

“The two of you have had seclusion issues. You can help her.”

Damon thought he had seen a little disappointment in Ric's eyes, and that made him angry. He didn't know why he was angry that the teacher had hoped he had a thing for Rose, but he was angry.

Maybe Alaric was thinking about Elena's safety? Damon hadn't tried anything for days! And the girl was adequately gifted to put herself in danger out of her own free will, so Damon's presence was necessary. Stefan was always doing as she told him, independence blah blah blah, but one day Elena would agree to trade her life for just anyone, and that day, Damon would be here to prevent her from doing something stupid.

Well, the vampire hadn't exactly been not flirting with the teenager, but he was Damon Salvatore, and Damon Salvatore flirted with anyone as long as they weren't utterly ugly. It would be the case until the day he wouldn't be single anymore. Which wasn't likely to be anytime soon.

The vampire then realized that thinking about Elena didn't hurt so much as it used to.

He still liked her a lot, he might even love her a little, but he wasn't half as jealous as before.

Maybe he was finally getting over his doppelganger obsession.

And he had a feeling it was all thanks to Ric.

The hunter's phone rang at the exact moment Damon was opening his mouth to say something nice. How much he was thankful to Alaric for being his sole friend on the whole planet, how the man had a positive influence on him, or maybe how the unpretentiousness of their friendship helped him a lot to be a bit more honest.

The vampire gritted his teeth.

He wouldn't say a word.

But he was hoping that Ric would stay here. Ignore the phone call. Talk with him about everything and nothing. Be here.

It was Vanessa Monroe calling. Alaric picked up and pushed his way outside of the noisy place that was the Mystic Grill this early in the evening.

It hurt more than thinking that Elena was going out with his brother instead of him, than knowing that Katherine had always loved Stefan and never loved him for real, than being aware that his father had always preferred his youngest son over his eldest. Damon didn't get why, but it hurt more.

He watched Alaric go and ordered another drink.

The whole story with the student was getting problematic.

Alaric knew she only meant to be useful. And to satisfy her curiosity, too. But the point was that she had no ill intention towards him.

The thing was that, by researching why Isobel had pulled out the chapter about the Falkenbachs, the young woman was doing something completely useless. Not only the hunter already knew what was written in the book before he had an opportunity to read it, but he also had a pretty clear idea why his wife had destroyed this particular chapter.

She had hand-pulled the pages about the Petrovas because she was part of that family.

The reason she had done the same with the Falkenbachs chapter was obvious.

“Vanessa?”

There was no one outside of the Grill, and that was convenient for him.

Ric wondered for how long Isobel had known.

After she decided she'd be a vampire? Before? After their wedding? Before?

_“I searched every databases I have access to, and nothing. Apparently, the Falkenbachs are really all dead and buried since the Nuremberg trials.”_

“That's not exactly surprising. I mean, even if the last Falkenbach hadn't been condamned and hadn't died shortly after that, people die and families die out. It happens, that's all.”

_“I know, but why would Isobel go out of her way to destroy a chapter from a book you can get just by ordering it if this chapter had nothing to do with living persons?”_

She did it so that he'd know she knew.

Alaric wouldn't tell that to the young woman, though.

“Maybe what she was interested in wasn't a person but a thing, a piece of information?”

A car parked two lots away from him.

_“If that's the case, I really don't know what to do now...”_

Three men got out of the car and entered the Grill. One of them was already seriously drunk and vociferated when he bumped into a car. They looked like troublemakers, but as long as they didn't have fangs, claws, magical powers, or weren't students, it was none of his business.

“Just let it go. You did a good job, and it's not even your problem to begin with. It wouldn't be the first time we don't have all the informations. So please, go back to your studies, and don't get involved.”

If Vanessa could do that, Ric would have one less worry. He really wished she'd listen to him.

She tried to say something, but he interrupted her.

“Don't say you won't if you will. There's no point in lying, and I won't come to tie you up to a chair if you decide to get involved, but I'd prefer to know you'll be safe, that's all.”

There was an awkward silence, then the student hung up without a word.

At least she hadn't lied.

Alaric sighed. His worries didn't go anywhere.

He went back inside and sat next to Damon only to find him pouting while staring ferociously at his glass of bourbon. The teacher said nothing at first, but after three minutes of silence he got bored and took matters into his own hands.

Damon felt fingers on his jaw.

Ric's hand was trying to force him to turn his head and look at the man.

The vampire considered not to give the teacher satisfaction, but the pressure of his friend's fingertips on his cheekbone and chin was getting stronger as time went by. If he had been human, resisting anymore would have gotten him bruises.

He slowly turned his head and looked at Ric.

“Is anything the matter?”

The teacher looked genuinely pissed at him, but also kind of worried, and that was kind of nice to know someone was interested in how he felt.

“That's exactly what I want to ask you, Damon.”

Ric let go of him, and the vampire didn't go back to ruminating his thoughts.

“If you have something to say, say it to my face.”

“This Monroe girl whistles and you comes running with your tail between your legs? Seriously?”

Alaric endeavored not to let a snarky remark out and stared at his friend, puzzled.

Damon was definitely averting his eyes.

The terribly dangerous blue eyes, the deceiving, the seductive, the appealing, the striking ice-blue eyes of Damon Salvatore were fleeing Alaric Saltzman's perfectly average gaze.

“I can't believe I'm going to ask you that, Damon, but... are you perhaps jealous?”

The vampire choked on his bourbon.

“Jealous? Why would I...”

“Forget it. That was a stupid idea. But you looked like you were jealous of Vanessa, which would be pretty hilarious since I only talk to her on the phone when the two of us spend hours drinking together and hunting evil creatures.”

Exactly. Why would the vampire be jealous anyway?

Alaric was simply trying to keep a clueless girl alive, nothing more. And Damon knew from experience that it wasn't a simple task. There were people, such as Elena, who couldn't help but end up getting involved in problems that weren't their own. The Gilbert girl was a special case, however: she had that particular talent to willingly choose to get in trouble for every seal pup in distress she saw when she already had her fair share of problems on her own.

There was nothing to be envious of.

But shit, Damon was jealous.

Admitting it freaked him out, but it was the truth. The vampire was envious of a female student that called his best friend once a day for ten minutes at most and he didn't know what to do about that.

The teacher had gone back to drinking when he heard Damon's voice once again.

“I don't know, Ric. I've no idea why, but I'm jealous as hell thinking about how you befriend this Monroe girl. I'm desperately trying to believe that it's because she definitely is suspicious, that she's stealing you away from me, Jenna and the kids. All I know is that I don't like you walking away from our drinking times to answer your phone.”

So much honesty from the vampire startled his friend.

An imbibed voice coming from his right prevented the hunter from thinking too much about it.

“True men are not supposed to be so emotional over each other, little girl.”

Alaric looked at Damon, who was ignoring the comment, then looked beside him. It was without a doubt one of the idiots from before.

Ric hoped he would be wise enough to shut up now, but the man was too drunk to act as a responsible adult. Or maybe he was a moron and an asshole to begin with.

“My pals and I are going on a road trip, and we thought that we could take the opportunity and wipe clean the area of men like you. You know, emotional, fragile...”

Damon smirked.

That was side-splitting.

The frail man he was was precisely considering some splitting.

Ribs splitting. Head and body splitting. There were many delicate ways to take care of fools.

Alaric was getting a little worried. Things were definitely going to get out of control. And he wasn't in the mood to burry any corpse.

The man tried to say something else, but his nose met with the hunter's fist and broke.

He then tried to insult Ric, but blood was pervading his filthy mouth from his broken nose.

Alaric stood up, rated the tree morons' strength and retained a disdainful sneer.

“Leave now. You had enough to drink for toni... more likely, today.”


	10. The same eyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, strange and old names are a thing in the Saltzman Family. Got a problem with that?

The Grill was so silent that Damon almost thought somebody had turned the sound off.

He had been surprised by Alaric's intervention. Surprised and many other things. Disappointed because he had hoped he could have beaten this guy and his friends to a pulp almost legitimately. Pleased to hear the sound of the nose breaking. Thunderstuck with the efficacity of the punch. Relieved that Ric wouldn't let him do something stupid. Heartened to have a friend that cared enough about him to stop any moron from insulting him.

This whole situation was so heartwarming that the vampire didn't even react at the scent of blood.

Not even interested.

Alaric saw the man leering at somecompletely dumbfounded customer holding a dinner knife. This idiot was definitely full of bad ideas.

“You get out of here. Now.”

“Don't believe the likes of you can order us around, you little shi...”

The man reached out for the knife, but the hunter was faster than he was.

Ric seized his arm and pinned it to the bar counter. Then, as the man struggled to get free from his grip, he squezzed so hard his fingers began to ache and he heard some crackles. He wasn't sure if it was his or the man's bones that were announcing an upcomming shattering.

The guy wasn't exactly unable to move, as the blood running down his face, the forced position and the strain on his arm were so much that he began to shake. Shaking was no immobility. It was way worse. Way more painful.

He lifted his head, ready for another round of verbal abuse. Then his eyes met with the teacher's, and what he saw was so terrifying his face went blank. No word, let alone insult, was uttered.

“I won't say it again.”

That was kind of awesome to see the local history teacher outpowering a thug with no difficulty, but that was also kind of problematic. People were already whispering about example and a lot of things Damon chose not to hear.

Alaric let go of the man who basically ran away as soon as he could walk straight again.

“I'm so used to see you battling against monsters with supernatural strength that I forgot yours isn't so common as well...”

The hunter grimaced. His fingers were still shaking, but he suspected it was his own fault. He just needed to realize that his opponent, even if he could hardly call him that, was ultimately alright. Or at least alrighter than he would have been if the hunter had let Damon deal with it. A lot less dead, to begin with. So, what he did was a good thing. He used his capacities for the well-being of someone, which was pretty ironic. He hadn't lost control.

His fingers weren't shaking anymore.

“I only train a lot.”

“Not so much. Not as much as you should to be able to pull such a stunt. And let's not talk about your muscular mass, that is perfectly formed but nowhere near enough to explain your prowess.”

“What do you want me to say? Some people have more efficient bodies, that's all. And what, are you spying on me?”

Damon didn't answer. He had other things on his mind.

“What about the fools? For what you know, they could as well be waiting for you outside?”

“They are. They always are.”

So the teacher had some experience with bar fights.

That wasn't the most intriguing thing. Damon had other interests, right now.

“Why did you do it?”

“Many reasons. Pick the one you like best.”

That was an evasive answer for sure. But the vampire wanted to know if his friend had acted for him, if he had thought about him, even just a little, when his fist had came into physical contact with the disgusting face of the moron.

“Let's try again: did you do it for him, or for me?”

Alaric frowned, unsure of what his friend meant.

“I could say both, I guess. But, Damon, who do you want it to be for?”

The question was left unanswered.

“Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go back. And to take care of some garbage.”

The hunter paid for his drinks, and left. Damon was so uneasy about the question that he didn't understand what Ric meant for at least fifty seconds.

Right. There was human trash waiting for Alaric outside.

The vampire supposed the teacher could handle it, but he didn't want him to be injured. And he had to return the courtesy, somehow. He should really go after him.

Ric was standing next to his car, listening to a deplorable conversation between tree drunkards that weren't even able to notice he was here. That wasn't so difficult to see him, but well. He had already guessed they weren't so bright.

The man whose nose he had broken was pressing a tissue on his face and talking in a low, wasted voice, so to say, loudly, to his two acolytes.

“You don't get it, guys. This man was a monster.”

“You're only saying that because he ridiculed you...”

At least that was not so stupid. Still, even if one out of three was a bit smarter than the others, the teacher could tell they wouldn't leave him alone. Too bad for them.

“Not at all! That wasn't his strength or his skills, and believe me, he has some, but his eyes that made me unable to fight back. I had this feeling that he would have killed me without second thought. And a man like that, you can't leave him off the streets. It's our duty to get rid of him!”

Yeah, Alaric had had this idea too, after the accident. But self-murder was such a hassle.

Really, had people that killed themselves thought about the friends they'd left behind? About the ones who would have to clean their mess? About the person that would discover their corpse?

And there was the hesitation. And there was the pain. And there was the possibility of a failed attempt. And there was the eventuality of sequelae.

Also, back then, he was only fifteen. He couldn't say he had been very eager to end his life.

“So, when he get out, the two of you grab him, and then I...”

The thug took a knife from one of his friends' hand.

Alaric sighed. Why were they all so fond of knives?

Knives were dangerous. It was so much easier to kill a man with something sharp than without.

The fool just boosted his odds to be killed.

Not that the teacher wanted to kill him. Simply, if he evergot a hold of the weapon, if the man evertried to retaliate, he couldn't swear he wouldn't use every means available to stop the fight.

Ric coughed to avert them of his presence.

When Damon finally came out, the first thing he saw was his friend kneeing someone in the sternum violently, knife in hand.

“I guess you did not need my help after all...”

“They've been drunk for hours. It's not much of a challenge.”

The guy fell on the ground with a dull noise. One of his friends was pucking from a fist in the stomach, and the last one was simply unconscious. Alaric planted the knife in the ground, next to a small tree.

“Now I really need to go home.”

“I'll take you back.”

“I can walk.”

“You prevented me from killing somebody tonight, I'm going to take you back to your apartment. I won't take no as an answer, because it's not a suggestion.”

The ride was silent. Neither of them wished to talk about it.

When Damon dropped the teacher at his loft, a woman was waiting for him at the door.

The vampire saw Ric stiffen at the sight.

She lifted her head.

“Alaric.”

So they knew each other.

Then again, that was pretty obvious. Why would an unknown woman be waiting at a man's door, if they weren't acquainted?

The vampire gave her a quick look. She was kind of beautiful, not exactly his type, but well, that wasn't the point. In her twenties, tall enough, thin and sporty, she had blue eyes and dark hair.

In fact, she had the same eyes as Ric.

“Cassandre.”

And a strange name too.

Damon wasn't saying that the hunter's name was lame. Alaric was a great name, but uncommon.

The vampire frowned when he noticed there was a suitcase against the wall.

“I need your help. It happened.”

Damon looked at the teacher, waiting for explanations. All he saw was emptiness struggling with sadness in Alaric's eyes. There was definitely something odd going on. Something wrong.

Ric confirmed his thoughts by shutting him out to talk with the mysterious woman that looked a little like him. His friend only muttered so that the girl wouldn't hear him.

“If you dare to listen to any of the words that are going to be said, Damon, I swear I'll stake you in the guts once a day for a whole year.”

And he shut the door to his loft. That was really not to the vampire's liking. But what could he do? Pretend to be a jackass and listen? That wouldn't do any good to their friendship. Damon knew he wouldn't be able to pretend that he hadn't heard everything.

The only thing he could do was going back to the boarding house.

Alaric listened to the infuriated footsteps of the vampire before saying anything.

Once he was certain Damon had left, he sat next to his cousin.

“Twenty-four. You're luckier than I am.”

Luck. What a joke!

“There is no luck in this.”

Cassandre was right. Yet she wasn't. She was lucky in her misfortune. A lot more than he had been.

“At least you're an adult. I was only fifteen. Your father?”

“Abroad. With yours.”

That was surprising. Edward Saltzman usually stayed away from the rest of the family, and so did Alden Saltzman. The two brothers were in good terms, but seeing each other was too much of a reminder of their sister Landyn, the current head of the family.

But it wasn't the moment to ask. Cassandre needed his attention, and privacy.

That was why Alaric couldn't let Damon hear what was going to be said. His family legacy wasn't so much compared to the well-being of his cousin.

“And your brother?”

“He got a contract in Philadelphia. And he is one of those among us that chose to embrace what we are. I want nothing to do with such a person. Besides, you were always my favourite cousin, and I think we're somewhat similar, family inheritance put aside.”

The teacher could only agree. No one outside of the main house wanted anything to do with Theodoric. To put it simply, Theodoric was the worst of the currently living Saltzmans. If Ric were to compare Cassandre's brother with Damon, the vampire would have won in terms of humanity.

“And what happened exactly?”

What Cassandre needed right now was someone to talk to, and not a psychopath who'd tell her it was absolutely normal not to care at all. Someone as Alaric, that had always hated this side of his personality, and yet had managed to move on.

The thing was that she didn't know what he had been up to since Isobel's disappearance. Ric ignored this thought. He still hated being as he was, even if he used it to his advantage. He could be of help.

“Forty-eight years old. He grabbed me outside of the university. I was late, it was dark. I think he wanted to rape me.”

A lot more common than Ric's. For him, it had been a hold-up at the bank. Dozens of people had saw him. Even if his name was never given to the media, he had seen his face in the newspapers for days.

No one was ever spared by their own, personal, family curse.

 


	11. A mark of shame

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if you think there isn't enough Dalaric in this chapter, but for now, Ric is very busy with his family problem. I hope you can forgive him.

“I should have slept on the sofa.”

Cassandre's voice woke Alaric up.

As a civilized man, as a family member, and as a man who knew what his cousin had been through, the teacher had decided he'd sleep on the sofa while she'd sleep in his bed.

“As if. Get ready, we still have a lot to do before you can move on.”

Ric stretched, his muscles somewhat sore.

Move on was a big word. Moreover, a word that meant pretty much nothing for a Saltzman, in this situation. All of them never even had to move on, because they weren't affected by their own acts. However, some of them knew it wasn't supposed to be so, and that made them inconfortable.

Most of these Saltzmans were the ones that deserted the main house, such as Alaric, his father and Cassandre's father.

Theodoric was certainly not amongst them, and neither was Landyn.

Alaric took a shower then ate a little, while Cassandre was doing the same, only not in this order.

Then they drove out to the wood surrounding Mystic Falls.

“No one should come, but stay attentive. We never know, around here.”

They finally found a spot far away from the road, concealed from view by brushes and trees, and settled there. The hunter hoped none of the fanged residents of the town would choose to take a walk during the time they needed to do what had to be done, especially Stefan, who habitually went hunting sooner in the day, but once again, you never know.

They didn't need any blood-lover to smell what was going to happen.

That he couldn't tell his cousin about.

“How did you find me?”

She looked at him, far from convinced by his feigned ignorance.

“Do you really need to ask?”

“Landyn has me monitored.”

That wasn't even a question. Even those who wanted to get away couldn't in the end.

“Well, she doesn't ask how you spend your time, but she has your license plate controlled every now and then. And, of course, she makes sure you don't get yourself into trouble.”

What Alaric had gotten himself into lately was way worse than any trouble he could have had with the law, but he was glad his aunt didn't know about that. As long as nothing involving authorities came to the light, he was certain she would leave him alone.

Truth to be told, the teacher hadn't exactly thought it through when he had decided to leave everything and start a vendetta. If he ever died at the hand of a vampire, his family would request an investigation, even if his death was reported as an animal attack. If he disappeared without a word, it'd be one hell of a ruckus in Boston.

But he had an excuse. His wife had been murdered-or-so-he-thought, for God's sake.

“I guess she wasn't exactly pleased to hear that you chose me over the ones from the main house to do the job?”

“If she actually had emotions, I'd say she was furious as hell. But you know her, the most you can get is the neutral face or the creepy smile.”

Ric was good enough at that too, but well, everybody in their family could pull off a poker face pretty easily. That was the thing when you had no feelings about one thing in particular: you knew how to fake it for the other emotions as well.

“You didn't tell me how he died.”

Here came the difficult part.

But Cassandre had to talk to someone about it, not some police officer or detective that knew nothing about who she really was, not only as a human being, but as one of the cursed Saltzmans.

And Alaric had to know in order to do what had to be done correctly.

“He silenced me with his hand and twisted my right arm. But, you know, it's nowhere enough to stop us from fighting back. So I escaped from his grip by turning around, and I bashed his head against the wall until he let go.”

“You surely didn't have much trouble with the police?”

“It was self-defense, and you know our lawyers... no detective could have found anything to blame me for.”

Cassandre was certain her cousin understood what she was talking about. He had made it through worse than her thanks to them. After all, he had almost beheaded the assaulter with the man's very knife when the robber had tried to carry out his threats against a child.

Almost professionally.

One motion only.

And blood had poured down on the floor.

And the man had fallen down.

As dead as one can be.

At least it was legitimate in both cases.

Ric searched for an empty vial and a knife in the bag he had brought along. He cleaned the blade with a tissue and some disinfectant. It would be stupid for his cousin to get an infection out of that.

“Let's get to work.”

Cassandre nodded and took off her shirt.

He did the same.

Last time he had participated in that kind-of-ritual, he hadn't been the one holding the knife, as evidenced by the star-shaped scar on his left shoulder.

He let Cassandre watch his scar for a while before judging it was enough.

“I don't think there is any material purpose in doing that, but it's still a good way to never forget what we are. No one in this family has ever been able to feel a thing after taking someone's life. It shouldn't be, yet it is. The ease with which the Saltzmans are able to kill is inhumane. If you choose to forget that, you will only end up killing someone else. Again. And again. And as you're one of us, Cassandre, you won't ever feel guilty about it. You may chose to feel guilty about the fact that a family lost a loved one, you may want to feel guilty about the fact that you took away a man or woman's life. But you won't ever feel guilty about the killing itself. Not even if you wish for it.”

Alaric took a last glance at his cousin's face.

Cassandre looked back at him with those eyes filled with emptiness he knew too well.

“Because we are natural born killers.”

That's right. They were.

He pushed aside the strap of her bra. Then he put the edge of the blade against her skin.

Alaric pressed the knife against her shoulder, and a reddish drop emerged from the growing cut.

One inch. Two. Three.

He withdrew the blade.

Turned it so he could trace a second branch, that would be the exact same length as the first one, and that would meet it in its middle.

Alaric pressed the knife. A scarlet drop ran down the young woman's back.

The blood fell down in the vial's aperture without making a sound.

He withdrew the blade.

Turned it so he could trace a third branch, that would be the exact same length as the two other ones, and that would meet them in their middle.

Alaric pressed the knife. A ruby drop slipped down the blade.

The lifeblood hurried its way to her lower back.

He withdrew the blade.

Turned it so he could trace a fourth and last branch, that would be the exact same length as the three cuts that had preceded it, and that would meet them in their middle.

Alaric pressed the knife. A bloody drop rolled in the vial.

He withdrew the blade.

And that was it.

Cassandre had said nothing, and had stayed still all along the process.

“You're okay?”

“It hurts a little.”

Ric cleaned his knife once again, then handed her the vial.

She took it, unsure of what to do.

“In fact, it doesn't really hurts. It's more like a dull feeling of burning, or maybe tingling. What do I do now?”

“Wait a bit for the blood to stop flowing.”

“I meant with that.”

The teacher glanced at the vial she was holding in front of her eyes.

It was true that keeping some of your own blood in your purse was kind of gross.

His was still in the cardboard he had shamefully hidden under his bed.

“You can throw it away if you want to.”

“What did you do with it?”

“I kept it.”

There was no reason to it. That was the tradition, nothing more. No purpose, explanation, or goal. Only the fact that having it among his things used to have the same effect on him as his scar. A reminder that even if he was a human being, he wasn't as human as he should have been.

They waited, and before they knew it, one other hour had passed. Alaric drove Cassandre back to his loft, then decided to go for a walk.

He was near the center of Mystic Falls when he thought that he really needed a drink.

But he wouldn't go to a crowded place. Not after what he had done. The hunter wasn't asking for much. His family really had strange traditions. At first he had thought it was ridiculous to hurt yourself in the name of tradition. But that was before the accident. When he had killed for the first time, Ric had understood that was not so stupid. The pain inflicted was an offering to make up for the lack of guilt. The scar was a mark of shame for the one who could kill relentlessly without the slightest remorse.

What he needed was a friend.

On the boarding house front porch, he met Elena who was leaving.

The teenager looked at him with surprise. He could understand that. He himself hadn't expected he'd come, and he had called in sick for the day one hour only after Cassandre's arrival, the day before.

And if he wasn't wearing his blank face right now, and hell he had no idea about whether or not he was wearing it, he surely looked like shit.

“Damon's here?”

Elena nodded, so he went in, but before she left she asked him about the events of the night.

“The guy you punched and his friends... They were taken to the hospital. You knew about it?”

“I really wonder why. They must have pissed off someone else, and that didn't went well.”

That wasn't exactly an answer, he knew it. She'd have to deal with it.

She left mumbling about a spell Bonnie was working on.

He found Stefan in the living room, reading a book. The hunter didn't even need to ask, the vampire immediately told him Damon was upstair. From the sounds that came from the ceiling, Ric guessed his friend needed company. The vampire seemed to be talking to himself.

Ric climbed the stairs. He saw Rose staring at him via the open door of the room she was staying in, so he gave her a polite hello. She rolled her eyes and made a gesture towards the noisy room that was Damon's.

“What did you do?”

The teacher shrugged his shoulders. Why would it even be his fault?

“He's been like that since he came back yesterday. When we try to talk to him, he just ignore us.”

Wondering what was going on exactly, Alaric opened the door, only to find Damon shaking a wolf skin rug all over the place while holding a stake that he pretended was speaking to the rug. The vampire stopped to look at him. He was definitely pissed, and what he said then made no sense.

“I'm currently picturing this stake as you, you as a werewolves hunter, the carpet as a werewolf, and enjoying myself very much.”

It was more likely that he was taking his anger out on the rug. Which was a lot better than doing it on a living creature. But yet, it was strange, even for Damon.


	12. I'm out of here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> before and during 2x12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (mumble) English lessons are the worst. I hate english. What the hell with the fucking aspirated h? I'm sorry I'm only good at reading, writing, listening, and not at talking. Fucking pronunciation. What if I slaughtered every person that wants me to talk english? Let's do this. (realize) What, someone is actually reading this? So sorry.  
> But I feel way better now.
> 
> A chapter in which you know for sur I'm french.  
> In which you know for sure I love the first name Alaric.
> 
> And hell, I save characters if I want to.

“How much have you drunk?”

The vampire let go of his accessories and walked towards Ric with an angered face.

There was only a third of a meter left between them when Damon stopped and looked right into the teacher's eyes. He wasn't half as drunk as the time Alaric actually had to lead him to his room, but he certainly wasn't sober.

And he couldn't have cared less in the world.

Ric shut him out? Good. He wasn't needed anyway, so why would he care? If only another werewolf could came in town, he would gladly handle it, so that it'd prevent him from seeing any known face! He knew that if ever he went after the Lockwood boy, he'd be in trouble with Elena and Stefan. The other people he would upset by doing so were uninteresting. And Alaric was already on his blocklist. But if he could find a werewolf, that would be great.

He definitely was in the mood for some torture.

The teacher's face, who seemed kind of tired, pissed him off some more.

“That I can't answer. You can count the bottles if you want. I'm out of here.”

And with that said, he left.

Ric had stood dazed in the room for almost two minutes, when Stefan went upstair to get an explanation. Obviously, the man was in no position to explain anything, beyond the fact that yes, Damon was by all the odds drunk, but no, that wasn't it. Alcohol didn't get the vampire angry. Dizzy, for sure, dangerous, too, shameless, finally, but not angry like that.

“He didn't hurt you?”

Alaric gave Stefan a puzzled look. Did he look like he was hurt?

“You have a feint and bloody scent on you, so I was wondering.”

“Oh, right. I cut myself shaving this morning and it got kind of messy. I had forgotten about that.”

Liar.

“If ever Damon says something about a girl he saw at my place, she's my cousin. From what I understand, he got grumpy after I told him he couldn't stay because of her. I don't know anything more, though.”

The vampire raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

Ric guessed Stefan was as dumbfounded by his brother's demeanor as he was.

He finally left. Everything had been way too awkward, the two of them standing in Damon's room in silence.

On his way to his loft, he wondered why his best friend had acted so strangely lately. It wasn't only the sulking part. Those questions, when they were at the Grill, after he had punched the fool. Alaric hadn't given him a proper answer, because he felt Damon needed to find out on his own. But the hunter hadn't expected it to drag on for so long.

As for him, Ric knew the answer: the man was pissing him off, made too much noise, and was going to get himself killed. Also, you don't just leave some thug insult your best friend for the sole reason that the man had a leather jacket and two lip piercings.

He had done it for the man, even though he couldn't have cared less about what would become of him, for himself, because you can't enjoy your drink when there is a bunch of morons wreacking havock all around you, for Damon, because that was the right thing to do.

Why couldn't the vampire understand that? It was simple. Genuine, really. No need to overthink it.

The teacher cared about Damon. That was all.

The kids liked him a lot, even the ones that weren't part of the Vampire & Co or Affiliated Secret Society, because yes, even if Ric tended to forget lately, he was still a high school teacher, and he didn't want to see them hurt any more. To bad that it was likely to happen anyway. He cared about them. But they were kids. His students didn't know the slightest thing about him, and that was for the best. Elena, Jeremy and the others were important. But they were kids. He watched out for them.

Damon was a friend. As Jenna, he was one of the only adults that had gotten to know him since he came to Mystic Falls. One of his two only friends in the whole damned town. As such, the teacher cared about them a lot. When your circle of friends comes down to two people, you tend to pay extra attention to them.

Or at least he did.

When he had told Damon to fuck off earlier, he knew that the vampire was angry. But not like that.

That was the result of alcohol on a mind he couldn't decipher for now.

Which was odd. Alaric was pretty much the only one around here that could brag about understanding Damon. For him not to comprehend his friend, he must have had missed something. None of the reasons he could imagine explained anything. There was something, obviously, but the hunter's brain didn't seem to even be able to consider what had to be the right answer.

Ric got out of the car and found Cassandre waiting for him.

She had her suitcase with her.

He frowned.

“You're going already?”

She didn't look really happy to do so, but she also knew she had to go.

“When dad said he would go to Italy with your father, I thought something was wrong. And apparently, I wasn't wrong about it. Landyn just called. Everybody is going home.”

Everybody. Even those that had fled the main house, in other words.

“Something happened?”

“I don't know what, but yes. She asked for you to come back, too.”

“I won't.”

No matter what, he wouldn't go back to Boston. Not for now. There was too much to do in Mystic Falls. Too many people he cared about. Too much danger. And he still had a lot to think about before he would ever set foot in the main house again.

That included vampires, werewolves, Originals, witches, and some research about the Falkenbach Curse. He needed to know if it was an actual thing, or if the people of their two families just had a screw loose. If it really had anything to do with magic, maybe a witch could help him to end the infernal circle that lead every single person from his family to kill someone one day or another.

Cassandre shrugged.

“You won't like it if she comes for you.”

“I won't like it either if I go back.”

The young woman had a timid smile.

“Good luck with that.”

Alaric cocked his head to the side, confused. She looked genuinely happy about his decision. As if he was being brave or something.

“You know I'm only running away, don't you?”

Her smile went from shy to cocky.

“No you're not. You're living your own life, Alaric. I wish you to be happy.”

Once she had left, Ric went to bed, thoughtful. It was only six in the afternoon, but he couldn't concentrate. All his thoughts were always going back to Damon and his incomprehensible behavior. And the hunter didn't know what to do with that.

Days went by.

He made some happy memories with Jenna. Sometimes, Elena and Jeremy would join. At these times, Alaric Saltzman felt as if he had two kids that had nearly become adults without him knowing it. He had almost forgotten how much he had wanted children before Isobel had said she didn't want any.

Ric had complied, back then.

He didn't love her anymore, that was a thing he was certain of, but it still hurt when he thought of every concession he had made for her, because he loved her, and how he was repaid for every single thing he had given up for her. She hadn't even be able to overcome her obsession to be a vampire for him.

Truth to be told, if she had asked him to turn with her, he might have considered it. What wouldn't he have done for her! And to be with Isobel for all eternity would have been quite a convincing point, regardless of all other considerations.

But she hadn't.

Speaking of vampires, Alaric had the feeling Damon was avoiding him.

One day he had met him at the Grill, and his friend had barely finished his glass of bourbon that he was gone.

That wasn't exactly helping him to understand what was going on.

But at least, the vampire wasn't poking around his past anymore.

The thing was that Damon had his head full of too many things to concentrate on only one, such as the secret Ric seemed to be keeping. What's more, he wouldn't even want to talk about what was the problem between him and the history teacher.

Because it was obvious to anybody that knew them a little, that something was off.

They weren't drinking together anymore, and the bored customers of the Mystic Grill were trying to figure out if it had anything to do with the almost-fight from before. Almost-fight, because for it to have been an actual fight, the thug should have been able to at least do something. But no, the man had been utterly overpowered. By the high school history teacher.

The awesomeness of Alaric was being pointed out too often, and so Damon had begun to avoid the Grill too.

Rose had tried to get him to talk when he was already half drunk, but he had only grunted and left the boarding house.

But one day came the awesome news.

A new werewolf in Mystic Falls. Finally, the vampire would be able to take his anger out on something else than a wolf skin rug. Saint Stefan would object, naturally, but hell, Damon needed to let off some steam, and a werewolf was already better than a guiltless human. At least, he knew this one was a killer like him.

To trigger the curse, the woman had to have killed a human being.

So she was a killer. And a good enough torture subject. And currently drinking at the Grill, alone.

She had that strange name, Jules. For someone from this century, it wasn't so strange, but for Damon, who had been around for a few more decades than the majority of the world's population, it was. He had gone to Europe in the early twentieth century. He knew France. And Jules was definitely a man's name. No french girl would have ever thought of nicknaming herself Jules. But well, that was the thing with the United States: people were from just anywhere, so names had undergone tremendous changes. That wasn't so bad.

Where else could you meet someone with such a regal name as Alaric? Here and there, certainly, but well, they weren't many of them. Ruler of all, for God's sake. That was badass.

But that was not the point.

Right, right, he wouldn't torture her if he didn't have to. Really, Ric, he swore.

But Ric wasn't here. In fact, Damon had been the one to reject him.

Damon wouldn't think about Alaric.

So, to clear his head of his mental image of the hunter that had been pounding at the door of his mind for days, the vampire went and tried to pour some wolfsbane into her drink.

He then learned that werewolves really had a wondrous sense of smell, and that he had forgotten something very important when dealing with werewolves. Don't piss them off during a fullmoon.

And unfortunately, it was the fullmoon.

Things went out of hand. Pretty badly.

And Rose was dying, bitten.

Bonnie came to the boarding house with a pocket mirror. Damon didn't get what she was doing, why she was doing it, or how she was doing it, but she confined Rose-Marie in the mirror. She told him that in there she wouldn't be hurt anymore, because it only captured the essense of the person. But she also told him she had no idea how to get her out. She had imagined the spell to trap Klaus, but it wasn't even powerful enough to do that, so she had thought she might as well use it to save the life of a vampire that wasn't so bad. She glanced at him while saying that, but he didn't care.

Rose had almost died, and she was trapped in a mirror for what could as well be all eternity, because of him. Because he was so interested in his own problems he hadn't been careful about anything. Because Alaric was driving him mad. He had to end it.

 


	13. You love him

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set in 2x14.  
> I'm beginning to mess with the show timeline, but... it's a fic, right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This month is likely to be one of the worst of my life. This is one of the only happyness inducing activities I manage to do without receiving a reminder of how much I'm useless. So you better enjoy it.  
> And yes, I believe in the frienship between Damon and Andie.

So.

The plan.

Yeah, right, because that was one hell of a plan. Act like a jackass. So that Ric would hate him. As if he wasn't a jackass to begin with. And as if Alaric hating him would change anything about how he felt like shit when he encountered the man that was supposed to be his best friend.

Truth to be told, Damon knew he was doing pointless shit. But he really didn't know what else to do. At least, now, their encounters were a lot less frequent, because, since he was being a jerk, Ric didn't want to talk to him.

It helped a little.

It should have helped a lot.

But it didn't.

Last time he had seen Ric wasn't so long ago. Something like hours. But at the time, he had a pencil stuck in his throat and was kind of busy not to leave blood all over the Lockwood house. He wasn't really paying his friend attention. Well, besides the fact that he was trying really hard not to steal some of Alaric's delicious blood. Besides the fact that he was trying really hard not to apologize for every thing he had done and word he had said lately. Besides the fact that he was trying really hard to keep the jerk act up.

What was true about it was that now that he saw his best friend only once or twice a week, he was being grumpy. Damon Salvatore. Grumpy.

If that wasn't hilarious.

Fingers tapping on his spine caught his attention, and the vampire looked up at Andie that had came back from the bathroom.

“Your house is as amazing as ever.”

“Wait until you try the hot tub before saying that.”

The reporter glanced at him with squinted eyes.

“I can never tell when you're being sassy or just saying the truth.”

“That's because I'm great at doing both at the same time.”

The vampire rolled on his bed to get on his back, revealing his temptating hip bones.

“It's a shame you put on underpants.”

“So sorry, but I can't only be your sex object. I have stuff to do too.”

The woman raised her eyebrows. Apparently, he wasn't convincing enough.

“Funny, I thought I was your sexual object, not the other way around.”

“Well, that's not exactly wrong, but you're the one who's already fully dressed.”

“And you're the one who's sexually frustrated.”

Was he?

He didn't feel like he was.

“Well, you're not the one that has sex with you, so maybe you can't tell, but I can for sure. The way you're holding me, everything you do is about someone else. And before you say anything, it's not your precious Elena. You're barely looking at her anymore.”

Damon was uncertain whether or not Andie was right, but if she was, he had no idea who he could have been fantasizing about. And people usually know when they're having wet dreams and are subject to sexual frustration. So he was most likely not fantasizing about anyone.

Unless his subconscious was hiding it from him, because than was an unsuitable person for his mind. And then, he could still try and guess, he wouldn't find out who it was no matter how hard he tried. Great.

Why would he be having wet dreams about unsuitable persons?

And, before everything else, who exactly could be described as unsuitable? Someone ugly, maybe? There was no way it'd be someone ugly.

So he changed the subject of their conversations.

“Alaric resents me because I compelled you into going out with me, you know.”

Well, said this way, it was indeed suspicious.

He had just brought it up because the thought had crossed his mind, but Andie took it very seriously. She sat on the bed next to him and talked while looking him in the eyes.

“Don't ever uncompel me, Damon. I want to be your friend, but I would freak out and we wouldn't be able to get past that.”

She didn't say that he would most likely have to kill her so that she wouldn't run to Elizabeth Forbes and tell her how a horrible vampire had been using her as a sex object and occasionally as a blood bag, but Damon knew she knew. And she knew he knew. So there was no point in saying it.

At first, Andie had been nothing but a distraction and a blood donor. But now, the vampire couldn't say so anymore. She was kind, even if somewhat compelled, so it was a given but anyway. He felt she was totally someone he could talk to. Not only because she wouldn't go around spilling his secrets, but because she was genuine in her affection for him.

She was like some kind of friend. He was even sad that he couldn't uncompel her so that they would have a real, complete friendship.

Well, lately, people to whom he had opened his heart were all not talking to him, dead or in dire straits. Such as, Rose being trapped in a mirror.

And... that was all.

Damon had only three friends, and one of them was being trapped in a mirror.

His other friend was on his blocklist because that was better for everyone.

And his last friend was being compelled. By him. So not friendly-friend.

But he had it coming. When your main occupation for more than a century is pestering your little brother or avoiding him like the plague, you don't make many friends.

“Are you okay?”

He hadn't meant to ask it out loud.

Andie frowned, uncertain of what to say.

“Why wouldn't I be okay?”

“I don't know. But I stormed into your life and now I occasionally drink some of your blood without even asking if you're okay. So now, I'm asking.”

The woman smiled and caressed his silky black hair.

“I'm the one who went after you, for the record. And yes, I am alright.”

“You surely didn't expect me to be of the bloodsuckers' kind.”

“I didn't even know it was for real.”

“Nobody does, until they do. What I mean is that I'm still kind of using you, you know.”

“I've known worst friends... Wait, what are we exactly? Friends with benefits?”

The two of them chuckled, thinking about how they totally hadn't expected it to become this way when it had happened the first time.

Andie wasn't aiming for friendship at all. She had thought he was hot, she needed company. She hoped that, maybe, it could grow into something more, but surely not into friendship.

Damon needed someone to forget his loneliness and his sadness with, just for a few hours. He certainly wasn't even thinking about seeing her again. Considering he'd let her go alive.

“You are not perfect, but you are kinder than they think you are. It's just that you are lost in a world that doesn't want of you. Your brother couldn't let go of you, when you both died, but your anger lead you to try and make his life as difficult as you could. Now, he's happy to know you're alive and all, but he's afraid of leaving room for you in his life. Others think you're only a monster, because you don't want them to see when you are hurt, which happens more frequently than even you think it does. All you need to do is open up to someone.”

Damon snorted. Things were never so easy. And he had already used up his first impression with every person that mattered, most of the time in a bad way.

“Maybe I don't want friends.”

“Everybody does. And what about your friend, Jenna's boyfriend?”

Yes, he had a friend. Never said he wanted one, though.

To speak the truth, he wanted friends. As much as anybody. But he wouldn' admit it out loud.

“Alaric?”

“He's a good guy, isn't he?”

The vampire thought about lying for a while, but he didn't feel like it. He was tired of finding excuses for his awful behavior. He was tired of blaming everything on the teacher.

It was his fault as well, even if he didn't understand why and how.

“Ric is way more than a good guy! He's awesome, terrifying, potentially dangerous as hell, but he stays calm when I snap and yell at me when I don't. He knows exactly when to talk and when not to and he doesn't care about what I want but he does care about what I need. He's funny but never morbid as any of my few vampire friends were. He's afraid of nothing in the damn world, but knows there are things that are way stronger than he is and that's exactly why he's so dangerous. He doesn't fear to inflict pain or death, even though he doesn't like to. He's not bothered by blood, corpses or body parts, which is freaking awesomely gross. And yet he has feelings, is capable of anger, joy, sadness, embarassment, as any man. He's perfectly human for such a cold-blooded fighter. Weak. Strong. Young like a kid. Old from to many injustices.”

When he shut up, Damon felt there was something odd with the way he had been talking about his best friend. Faster and faster, as if he was afraid he wouldn't be able to finish what he had begun. As if somewhere in his brain, something was willing to stop him before he went too far, ready to go off the very moment he'd have crossed the Rubicon.

But the vampire didn't know which Rubicon was concerned.

Andie looked at him without saying a word for what seemed like an eternity. She had obviously heard it, the wavering in his voice. And she looked like she knew what it was due to.

When she talked, she said something pretty unbelievable.

“You love him.”

Damon was so astonished he didn't even manage to come up with a snarky comment.

“What?! No!”

There was no way he was in love with Ric. Seriously, even the fact that he gave the hypothesis a second of attention was ridiculous. And the man was... well, a man.

“Damon, be honest with yourself for once. Your voice was shaking, you described every single thing you like about his personnality, you're being horrible to him because you don't know what to do with your feelings, and you're being atrocious to pretty much anyone else because you don't get to spend time with him anymore, and he's seriously hot.”

Of course Alaric was hot. Damon didn't let just anyone in his vicinity. Ugly people were not allowed near him. It would have tarnished his brilliance.

What the hell was he mumbling about already?

“If you think he's hot, why don't you try dating him yourself?”

And why the hell was he being a jerk?

Bloody hell.

Because he was one.

That was his way of dealing with things he didn't want to be concerned about.

It had always been his way of dealing with things he didn't want to be concerned about.

Andie didn't react to his nastiness. She had surely expected it. Instead, she only put her jacket on. She had to go to work, unlike him. Just before she shut the door, she winked at him.

“He's Jenna's. I wouldn't even dare to think about it.”

And so what? If she wasn't supposed to, why would he be?

“And I like bad boys better.”

So she saw him as a bad boy. Well, that wasn't exactly a surprise. After all, he was one.

The vampire listened to her walking into the corridor, downstairs, then he heard the front door shutting. She was gone.

This woman was really messing with his head. Nearly as much as Ric did. But she did it on purpose, when the hunter didn't even have an idea of how much his friendship was affecting him.

Damon put clothes on, and then just stayed here, in his room.

Him, in love with Alaric Saltzman?

What a joke!

Sitting on his bed, he heard a loud knock on the front door.

 


	14. Damon's undead heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry. I won't write anymore if you don't want me to ( go on dreaming about that ).  
> But it was so tempting, I had to do it.

Alaric was upset.

Lately, Damon had been avoiding him like the plague.

In fact, the vampire's plan was a bit more complicated than that, but in the end, the teacher could still see through it, so it was all the same. Damon was avoiding him. To be precise, he was acting the same way he had been before the hunter tried to kill him and ended up dead instead, so that Ric would be the one avoiding him.

Too bad, jackass, it wasn't working.

If he still couldn't figure out why his best friend wanted Ric to hate him, he knew that was all on purpose. And he knew that the vampire wasn't happy at all about it. And usually, that meant Damon didn't want him to be involved in something dangerous or stupid. Or something dangerously stupid. Or stupidly dangerous.

And, really, if that wasn't the case, then Ric had an idiot who rejected happiness as a best friend.

So when he knocked on the door of the Salvatore's, he was upset as hell.

The fact that when Damon opened the door, the vampire made a face, didn't help him to calm down at all.

“Yes, it's me. No, I won't go away, or fuck off, or anything that involves leaving you sulking alone in this house when you clearly don't want to talk to me.”

And he fought his way inside.

“So, now what?”

The vampire had his sulking-face on, and reluctantly looked him in the eyes.

“Don't you so-now-what me, Damon. If there is one thing I know, besides the fact that my life is fucked up, it's that you do shit when you don't want to talk to people. And as I decided to give you another chance at being a good guy, I won't let you go down that road. And really, I don't want to stake you, seeing as your my only male friend in the whole city.”

Alaric crossed his arms, and waited.

Damon squinted his eyes.

He couldn't say he had expected that.

Ric seemed to be really angry at him, but not at all about what he should have been. He had even called him a friend. So, apparently, his plan had turned to turd. That he should have expected. Because the plan was shit to begin with. Still, one can always dream.

Now, the problem was that he still had no idea about what to do.

And there was the fact that Andie had seriously messed him up with her ridiculous theory.

“Fine, we'll talk.”

Or he could kill Ric and leave him somewhere in the woods so that he'd wake up definitely furious against him. Better check that the man still had his ring, though, with John Gilbert in town and all. But, really, why hadn't he thought of that sooner?

Because he still wanted to have a friend, and couldn't bring himself to do something so irredeemable.

Rectification.

He still wanted the teacher to be his friend more than anything in his life.

“But I'll go get us glasses and a bottle of bourbon.”

Damon had no idea what he would tell Alaric. But he knew he would need a lot of alcohol to do it.

The teacher watched him go. At least the vampire had agreed to talk with him. Even if he didn't look eager to. That was something. That also meant something could be said. They could talk and get over it.

Alaric let his eyes wander around the entrance.

The house was enormous, he already knew that. The Salvatores were stinking rich, he already knew that too. And there was old and very interesting stuff all around the place, he also knew that already. Perfect place for an overly curious history teacher.

So he was only half surprised to find a nineteenth century sword in the umbrella holder.

Damon should really learn to tidy up a bit.

But the teacher heard the sound of the main door being opened, turned around, felt an sharp pain in his stomach and almost collapsed.

But the assailant didn't know who his victim was. What was the secret behind his family name. A single blow in the guts couldn't really take him down. Not so fast at least.

Alaric hoped that the one who attacked him wasn't human, or he'd be in deep shit.

Because he was definitely going to die.

And he didn't have time to think about it.

The hunter unsheathed the sword forthright. The blade made his way to the figure he couldn't distinguish, his vision blurred as hell. And it stuck in something.

The resistance was enough. He knew it was flesh.

The effort was difficult to make, but Alaric rose his head and squinted his eyes to try and see better.

It wasn't only flesh.

He had stabbed the man right in the neck, and blood was overflowing from the wound.

Ric felt a hand twisting his arm into letting go of the sword, but he wouldn't. Killing was really one of the things he did best, and for once, he wouldn't feel sorry about it. He had a bloody smile, pushed the weapon deeper into his killer's throat and died.

Damon saw the werewolf fall on the ground, but that was so not what he was concerned about that he only had eyes for the dead form on the floor, the one with light brown hair and blue eyes.

The vampire didn't notice the werewolf that came after him until it was too late, and next thing he knew he was tied to a chair in his living room. Well, tied was a soft word. Tied didn't usually imply wooden nails and stakes and whatever.

There were something like five werewolves in his living room. Not exactly the kind of guests he was used to. Six, with the dead one that had been laid on the couch with precaution. Or, he hoped this one was a werewolf too, so that Ric wouldn't be dead-dead.

Alaric really did a good job for a stabbed and dying man.

Apparently, Damon wasn't the only one to think that.

One of the uninvited guests was squatting in front of the dead history teacher, boiling with rage.

“He was abnormally strong for a human. Like, first-class product.”

And yes, no human should have been able to hinder one of them. But the man, although dying at the time, had managed to stop them from pulling the blade out of their friend's neck before he died from blood loss. And that was so not to the werewolf's liking he suggested to cut the corpse into pieces to avenge the deceased.

That wasn't good news. Ric had a wonderful ring, or at least Damon hoped he still had it, but nothing could be certain with magic, and the vampire wouldn't have bet one buck that a dismembered Ric could be brought back to life.

He was almost glad when Jules, because it was her, the loathsome werewolf that had killed Rose, said that they weren't savages and even though they were beasts, that didn't give them the right to play with corpses, that it was disgusting and that Stevie should better not offer any other idea that fell into this category. But as she ended her speech by saying they had some vampiric torture to do, Damon wasn't going to say thanks. Being the only vampire in the house, as Stefan was as always flirting elsewhere with Elena, who was supposed to be the victim was kind of obvious to him.

And there she went asking him about things he didn't know the answer to, inquiring things he wouldn't ever answer to, threatening him to let Stevie torture him some more, finally letting the werewolf do his shit.

And still the vampire wouldn't talk.

Not that giving in wasn't tempting, but hell, he wasn't even thinking about the way the sadistic werewolf was pushing wooden nails into in flesh.

All he could see was Alaric's dead body on the carpet. The blood that had run down his mouth when his internal organs had been pierced. The lack of life in his eyes. How he had been discarded unceremoniously on the floor, just so that his corpse wouldn't be in the middle of the entrance.

All he couldn't see was whether or not his best friend still had the ring on his finger.

Fucking John Gilbert. If the hunter stayed dead because of him, Damon would rip his head off. Once all of the fucking assholes in the room would have been taken care of, obviously.

What was he going to do if Ric was definitely dead?

Distress, fear, hartred, rage.

Sadness, anxiety, despair, regret.

The pain he endured when Stevie staked him in the leg was nothing. Nothing compared to the terror that was seizing his heart at the thought that maybe Alaric Saltzman was gone for good. Nothing compared to the hollowness that would become of his heart if once again he was to be left behind.

Nothing.

The werewolf had no idea how much anger was ravaging the vampire's mind.

This much pain was nothing.

All he knew was that he didn't want to only have memories of Ric. He wanted time with the teacher, he wanted to see him alive and kicking. He wanted to witness every single second of the hunter's life. Alaric laughing. Alaric talking. Alaric smiling.

Holy shit.

Andie was right.

Damon was madly in love with his best friend.

It took him a while to process that someone else had entered the room.

Elijah mocked the werewolves, ripped some hearts out of their rightful owners, let Jules get away before freeing him. Elena's agreement with the Original had come in handy for once. Or twice?

It wasn't important. Damon rushed to the already cold corpse, and sighed in relief when he saw the familiar shape of the Gilbert ring on the teacher's finger.

The Original said something about how the vampire was abusing of his protection, but really, Damon wasn't sure he was listening to any of this.

“Well, if you're done here, you can go. I will just be waiting for Ric to wake up.”

Elena apparently had told Elijah about the magic ring, because the Original didn't say a word. He also ignored the ungratefulness of the one he had saved, but that was mainly because he had heard distress in the young vampire's voice. Elijah wasn't sure what was going on, and didn't care, but he overlooked Damon's impertinence. The youngster was certainly not thinking straight at the time, and no matter what could be told about him, the Original was a merciful person. Up to some point.

So he left Damon and Alaric alone.

Or, more accurately, he left Damon alone with the hunter's stiff body.

Damon ran his fingers in Ric's hair. It was way softer than he had expected it to be.

How the hell he had ended up falling in love with this man was beyond him, but it was real.

Minutes passed by.

And the teacher wasn't coming back.

The first time Alaric had died, it took only a dozen of minutes for him to be alive again, according to Stefan. Now it had been nearly one hour.

Damon's undead heart was beating faster as time went by.

Why wasn't Ric waking up?

Fear clouded the vampire's mind.

He wasn't sure it was a good idea, actually, he was pretty sure it wasn't, but he did it nonetheless.

Damon bent over the corpse of the man he loved and looked him in the eyes.

Unfocused eyes.

The vampire's fingers were almost touching Alaric's skin, his forehead, his cheeks, his lips. They never really touched the body, the horribly-cold-as-death body, the tips of his fingers barely reaching the skin. Never even near enough to brush off the dust that had clung to the left side of Ric's face when one of the bastards had dragged him in the living room.

He would surely feel sorry for what he was about to do later on.

Damon leaned forward to softly kiss the hunter.

Tears fell on Alaric when he saw the lifeless eyes.

And the man rose from the dead.

Headbutt.

That was so not romantic.


	15. The remaining tears

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so tired... but here is your chapter.

When Alaric woke up, he got up pretty violently.

Violently because the shock of being alive again lead him to search for air really fast, but also because by doing that his face encountered something hard.

He held his head with one hand and looked anxiously around him.

There was a bunch of dead people on the floor of the living room, nearly as many hearts laying around, and, more important, an all bloody Damon sitting beside him, a hand on his nose as he was swearing as a trooper.

“Goddamn it, Ric! You broke my nose!”

Well, sorry, next time he'd come back from the dead, the hunter would be more careful.

“It's not like you won't heal.”

The vampire made a strange face, but it lasted only one second, so Ric wasn't sure of what he saw.

“You got blood on my clothes?”

That sounded almost like a plea from someone who absolutely needed something to be angry about. But as Damon was searching for an excuse that would be acceptable, it wasn't very convincing.

“About that, I think you're doing just fine on your own.”

Alaric eyed the many corpses in the room, then the blood on Damon. Who, surprisingly enough, took offense at his implied contribution to the blood bath that was definitely going to stain the floor.

“I'm not the one who did this, Elijah did. As for me, I was chained to the chair right here!”

The teacher was going to ask about the torture device that layed on the back of the chair in question, but decided against it. Sometimes, you just don't want to know.

He then saw Damon's gaze going to the only corpse that still had his heart.

The werewolf Alaric had killed.

“I'm falling behind... I didn't even kill one of them.”

“But you didn't die, so I guess it's a tie?”

Ric saw the vampire stiffen, and noticed brilliant spots in the corners of Damon's eyes.

“You cried?”

“Almost.”

Damon showed his pant leg, jagged where the stake had been pushed in his flesh.

“The pain was too much. But what about you, how are you feeling? I mean, you just died, so is there any pain left?”

Alaric chose to ignore the fact that Damon wasn't telling him everything.

“I'm alright. The ring healed me. Maybe a little stiff, though.”

And to prove it, he stood up and went to an armchair. Then he sat down.

“I'd gratefully accept a drink, you know.”

The corpses lying around were obviously irrelevant. Not that he enjoyed drinking bourbon in the middle of a blood bath, but at the moment, he just didn't care. He needed a drink.

Hopefully, Damon had an amazing collection of overpriced wines and whiskeys.

The vampire looked one more time at the bodies. When he had said to Andie that Ric wasn't bothered about body parts at all, it wasn't a figure of speech. But still. At least, he could clean up the ripped out hearts. Hide them in a vase or something. Because that was really gross.

“Fine, but you're helping me burrying them.”

“Deal.”

Alaric closed his eyes and listened to his best friend leaving the room.

Damon stepped in the kitchen, in search for a good bottle of bourbon that wouldn't need him to go dowstairs, but soon he stopped his search and sat on a chair.

So that was it. He loved Ric, and once again his love was doomed not to be. That was a repeating pattern, wasn't it? Always, always, he fell in love with someone that loved someone else. The only difference was this time the one he loved wasn't in love with his brother, but with the aunt of a girl he had loved too. And, the one Damon loved was a man. That was new, and kind of freaking him out, but well, you don't choose who you love.

The vampire wiped away the remaining tears and went back to finding that damn bottle.

He wouldn't let Alaric find out about his feelings for him. If Damon could still have their friendship, it would still be better than nothing.

It didn't matter that at the mere thought of how he wouldn't ever get the love he needed, he felt as if someone was crushing his heart. A strong, big, amazing hand, crushing his heart as it was used to pushing stakes into vampires' chest.

The vampire found a bottle of alcohol, and returned in the living room.

The two of them drank, drank again, and went on drinking until the bottle came empty. Alaric then gave it a disappointed look, and tried to get on his feet.

“You're not leaving already, are you?”

“What? No! We didn't even bury the corpses... No, I was just thinking of robbing your wine cellar.”

“That's one hell of an idea. Wait for me, I'm coming too.”

Walking down the stairs to the basement proved to be a bit difficult for the newly alive Alaric. Stagerring a little, he leaned on the wall and sighed.

“Dying is not my thing...”

Damon looked at him with a shocked face that was obviously fake.

“I'm not sure dying is anybody's thing... and you manage pretty well for a twice dead guy.”

Ric chuckled.

The vampire loved that sound. It was so comforting. As if everything was going to be alright. Because for one of them to laugh, even a little, that most of the time meant that no one had died, was dying, or going to die. That meant that the supernatural farce of the world was almost on hold. Vampires kept on drinking blood, of course, witches and warlock kept on being aware of the nature all around them, werewolves kept on being annoying, and all the usual bullshit, but no one was trying to murder anyone else for at least one peaceful hour.

And it was Ric's chukle. Not just anyone's.

The teacher's chuckle had always been more comforting than others'. Now he knew why.

When they finally arrived, Damon and Alaric scoured for the perfect bottle, and decided it was a pain in the ass to go back upstairs.

Ric took the red wine bottle his friend was handing to him and poured himself a glass of wine, as Damon had already done. There were glasses everywhere in the boarding house, even in the bathroom, and that told a lot about its occupants.

Drinking a lot and bad at tidying.

“It's funny to think how I wanted to kill you for Isobel's death and here we are, getting drunk together with a crime scene on the ground floor.”

“Creepy would be a better word, no?”

They were sitting on the cell's bed, already light-headed.

And being dizzy was always simplifying everything when you wanted to speak the truth. Alaric wished to come clean, or at least divulge some of his secret to the vampire. He couldn't bear it anymore. He needed someone he could talk to when things became too much.

And talking about that to Jenna or one of the kids was a really, truly bad idea.

“You don't care, you're a vampire. Creepiness is your motto.”

“But it isn't yours. You're human, remember?”

Ric snorted. He was losing track of what he wanted to say.

“Isobel isn't dead, she left me by faking her death, and I'm not even angry. I'm just... sad.”

He had tried to build a regular, boring-but-perfectly-normal, life by marrying the woman he loved, but she had put an end to it. Now there he was, in a reality that was even worse than the one he was living in with his family's legacy.

Maybe he wasn't meant to be freed.

And, in a way, this reality, was still better than the one he had as a Saltzman. Here at least people had feelings, remorse and everything.

“Even our relationship was a set up. Maybe she loved me, I don't know, but when she first looked at me, it was out of pure curiosity.”

It took a while for Damon to understand that something was going to be said. Something important.

The vampire grew a bit anxious. Of course, he didn't like to hear that Alaric wasn't happy, but there was more to it. Everybody knew about Isobel's obsession about vampires, and supernatural shit in general. What could have triggered her interest about her husband, he really wondered.

“What do you mean?”

Ric took a sip of bourbon, then closed his eyes.

“There has always been this saying about our family, that we were cursed to the bone. I used to think we only had some kind of mental problem running in the family, but now, I don't know anymore.”

Because magic was real, what he didn't know back then.

Mason Lockwood's words, the hunter's strange endeavor, his cousin's visit, came back to Damon's mind. The fact that untriggered werewolves, even if they were still human beings, were affected by their condition with outbursts of anger. The fact that doppelgangers were human beings and yet supernatural beings. The fact that witches were able to do magic even though they were human beings. The fact that being human didn't prevent you from being affected by magic, in a nutshell.

Or curses, for what it mattered.

 _Family Curses and Cursed Families_ , an interesting book indeed.

“My whole family is composed of murderers.”

Damon didn't say a word. He didn't want to interrupt the avowal, and really, what he was thinking right now was a little beyond words.

“Every one of us, every single person that was born in my father's family, has killed or will kill a human being at some point in his or her life. It can't be avoided, and that can't be coincidental.”

Oh no that couldn't. But that explained a lot, too.

“Be it self-defense, accident or murder, we all went down that road at least once, and no one ever felt guilty about it. We're like immune to remorse when it comes to killing. Hesitation? What's that? A Saltzman simply kills and then it's done. It has been this way for generations.”

Damon said nothing, but frowned. He was sure he had read something that sounded almost the same in the book he had stolen from the teacher. The name wasn't Saltzman, but it was the same curse.

And apparently, Isobel knew about it.

“Murder isn't a problem for me, and that is my problem.”

The vampire wanted to say it was normal for the hunter not to like it, but coming from him, it might not have sounded very honest. After all, he was the guy who killed on a whim...

“Am I right to guess that you're also instinctively skilled with anything linked to fighting?”

“Exact. I learn combat skills, or, more likely, assassination skills, as easily as any naturally gifted individual in the discipline.”

No wonder the man was so dangerous.

“What about the time you came after me? I killed you pretty easily, even if I'll admit I was surprised you fought back with so much strength.”

Damon saw Ric wincing, and it seemed to him it wasn't only due to the memory of his first death.

“I had only killed one vampire back then. Wasn't aware of the way your strength increases with time. And, to be frank, I only recently went back to training. After my first kill in 1991, I stopped any sports activities to reduce the odds it would happen again. I was a little rusty.”

The wine soon shut them up about any serious matter, and when the two friends returned in the living room, they fell asleep really fast.

When Stefan came home this night, he found his brother and his history teacher asleep on the sofa for one and in an armchair for the other. There were corpses that had obviously been forgotten there by the delivery guy, because, really, why would there be corpses in his living room if it wasn't the delivery guy who did it? Coagulated blood was all over the floor, and Damon's shirt, and Alaric's shirt. The icing on the cake: three or four ripped out hearts, the vampire didn't stop to count, on a plate, in the kitchen.

And the sleeping beauties were faintly smiling in their sleep.

A memo on the dining table: “We'll clean up tomorrow.”

Stefan had had some problems with a werewolf during the evening, but that...

What the hell had they been doing during the afternoon?

 


	16. From the last time you died...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> set in 2x15

It had been hours since they met, but Elijah still couldn't figure out what was the deal with the local history teacher.

Truth to be told, they had already met once before, but at the time the man was very dead. So you couldn't say they were acquainted. Corpses usually don't talk or present themselves.

Alaric saw the Original looking at his ring with a glint of interest, as he had been doing frequently for the past hours. He couldn't blame him for that. After all, it was a pretty useful ring. But if the hunter had noticed how the vampire was discreetly observing him, it was because he himself had been doing the same. Not because discreetly wasn't so discreet.

Discreet Elijah was discreet, no question about that.

But observant Saltzman was better.

It's easier to kill someone when you're fully aware of your surroundings, so the Saltzmans were usually attentive people. At least that was a skill Ric wasn't angry to have inherited.

When Jenna took a break from speaking, because, really, there was a lot of things to say about Mystics Falls' history, and the teacher was even beginning to wonder if so much information wasn't due to the founders making up some of them to look better in the archives, Elijah and Ric remained alone for a dozen of minutes once again.

An awkward silence took over.

Silence was often awkward those days.

Waiting for Jenna to come back, Ric was looking straight ahead of him, saying nothing. He knew he wasn't in any danger, thanks to the deal Elena had made with the Original, but couldn't help being a little tense. Who wouldn't be, with a thousand years old vampire who could easily rip someone's heart out in a flash next to them?

But the immobility he was in got the better of him, and pain began running through his shoulder.

Alaric shouldn't have tried to deny he was in trouble with his body, but go and tell the doctor you're having side effects from the last time you died... It'll be the asylum for you, sir.

The hunter wasn't planning to go to a mental institution anytime soon. And even if he did, Landyn would never have permitted to see one of her people regarded as insane and locked away without having a say in the matter. You never know what can be said by a man drugged with sedatives, and she wouldn't want to see the family investigated afterwards.

He reached for the back of his left shoulder, wondering if pressing onto the sore part would be enough to silence the pain.

Apparently not.

“A problem, maybe?”

“Only a bit of pain after being dead for the second time. And since I doubt that's a common occurrence, I can't seem to find any useful data about how to deal with it.”

Nothing else was said after that. The silence was thicker than before.

Jenna came back, refreshed and all, and the tour was resumed.

The three of them finally ate at the Grill, where they met with Damon and Andie.

Then came the obviously bad idea of a dinner, proposed by Damon, of course, which could only mean trouble. Ric stared at his friend threateningly, but the vampire was determined to avoid his eyes for unknown reasons. Finally, the dinner was agreed on, and each of them went their separate ways.

When he left the Mystic Grill, the Original thought about the way the man had been staring at the younger vampire, like he could have beheaded his friend without a hesitation if Damon had said something particularly inappropriate. There was something with this man's eyes, that almost gave him the chills. And he knew he had already felt something similar, centuries ago, but he couldn't remember when or where.

Those eyes, they were worse than those of a vampire that had shut off his humanity.

At least, the said vampire was still able to experience basic, harmless feelings. Harmless for him, of course. Pride, cruelty, satisfaction. That wasn't healthy, for sure, but it was better than nothing.

Nothing was what could be seen in Alaric Saltzman's eyes.

Or couldn't be seen, for what it mattered.

The teacher finally took his eyes off the vampire as he walked away, and gave Jenna his full attention again.

She was so beautiful and looked so happy he couldn't repress a smile, even if he knew he really had to give his shoulder a look before the evening. The pain wasn't much, but it was continuous.

“You're sure you don't want me to help?”

“No one should ever have to deal with my thesis besides myself. It's too much of a challenge to even read my handwriting, and I like when you look at me too much for you to loose your eyes trying.”

Jenna smiled and gave him a light kiss before going.

So Alaric was left alone with Damon and the compelled Andie.

“How much should I worry about your plans for this evening?”

Damon put his naive look on, and the teacher guessed these plans were really, really bad news.

“It's nothing more than a dinner. You know, between friends.”

“You always have something on your mind when you try to look innocent, which, by the way, is not working at all, just so you know. So, will you share with the class or should I begin by sticking a fork in your hand to see what happens?”

The vampire frowned.

Glanced at the fork dancing between the teacher's fingers.

That sounded really different now that he knew of his best friend being something of a natural born killer. Before, he probably sensed the hunter might have carried out his threats if only there were less people around, but he never really believed that he would. Now, things were different.

Which didn't mean that the vampire thought Alaric would just do it, of course. But he knew the teacher could have if he wanted to, and that was starting to freak him out slightly.

“Calm down, killer. I'm aware that everybody knows my innocent face is bullshit, for your information. And I'm only planning to kill the thousand years old gramps who just left with a stylish dagger and ancient ashes.”

Alaric really wished he could do a facepalm with his free hand, but the pain had grown into something so disturbing he didn't wish to know what would happen to his left shoulder if he even tried to lift his arm.

Instead, he only sighed and said goodbye, promising to be there for the dinner.

“Maybe you should follow him.”

Damon turned to face Andie.

“If it's about my feelings for him, I won't say a word.”

The reporter looked kind of surprised with his answer, but chuckled before he could say anything else. Waiting for her to explain herself made Damon a little impatient.

“So you finally admitted it. Better than nothing. But I was talking about the fact that he's been keeping his left arm from moving too abruptely for hours. You said he died recently, maybe he's not as okay as he wants you to believe he is.”

“Alaric wasn't doing anything with his arm. If you're trying to get me to talk to him alone, say it already.”

Andie painted an insulted look on her face.

“I'm not, and he wasn't doing anything with his arm because the point of keeping your arm from moving is that it stays still. You were too busy being jealous when you saw him with Jenna that you didn't even notice he wasn't doing good.”

Damon grunted. He wasn't jealous. Not at all. He was simply happy that Ric was happy with a decent woman. And a little sad that it wasn't with a decent man. Or more accurately, with a not-at-all-decent man. Or a not-at-all-decent vampire, to be exact. Hell, he was sad that it wasn't His Majesty who was going out with Alaric Saltzman, but seriously, he couldn't do anything about it.

And he'd have noticed if the hunter hadn't been doing well.

He would have noticed. Definitely.

The vampire looked Andie in the eyes.

“You're sure he wasn't doing good?”

Because he had been way too troubled by the kiss to notice anything, because he was jealous as hell, because Andie was right and he didn't want to admit it.

“Certain. Now, go, and stalk him if you have to.”

Damon left the Grill, hoping Ric had gone back to his loft.

And the teacher had.

Alaric was bare chested in his bathroom when the vampire looked through the window.

That was some view to see, and Damon really resented the man right now for never having invited him inside. Because of that, the vampire was currently maintening his equilibrium on the windowsill, and hoping that no one would look up and see him. Not only he was acting like a stalker, but he was a stalker that was holding himself to the building's rain gutter.

Ric winced when the sleeve of his shirt finally left his arm.

His right hand explored the back of his shoulder, and then he felt it.

It was like some of the veins on his back were swollen.

It's only when his fingertips came into contact with the damaged part of his skin that he realized what exactly was swollen.

The hunter came closer to the mirror, and turned a bit so he could see the star-shaped scar.

He had no idea what it meant exactly, but it couldn't be good. Two of the eight points were red and bulging, and the veins that ran through the swollen skin were the ones that were bloated.

That was the kind of things that could almost convince him to go and ask Bonnie Bennett for her expertise. But she was far from being an expert, even if she was truly powerful. The young witch was lacking experience, and way too close to Elena and Jeremy.

If only Ric could get in touch with some other witch...

He stayed still for one or two more minutes, thinking, then the teacher went to get ready for the dinner.

He couldn't do anything about it for now.

And it could as well be nothing. After all, after his first death too his shoulder had hurt, even though not as much as this time. In the end, nothing had happened.

Alaric was still alive, and that was good enough for now.

But if Alaric felt this way, it wasn't Damon's case.

When the vampire had set eyes on the scar, he had remembered.

The name in the book was Falkenbach.

When the vampire had sighted the bulging veins coming from the scar, he had frowned.

That coudn't be good.

What the hell it was, he had no idea.

But it couldn't be good.

Damon raced up to the boarding house.

He passed by Stefan who was leaving, and obviously wasn't informed that there was a dinner in the evening in their very house, because he was too busy spending time with Elena, because he would have suspected something and could never help but say the truth to his girlfriend who would at some point have tried to prevent them from killing Elijah, and because Damon hadn't told him about it. Best way not to have a whiny and suicidal doppelganger in the way of the upcoming Original Murder Operation.

It took him almost ten seconds to find the book he had freed from Alaric's custody.

When Stefan was gone for good, Damon began cooking the dinner, reading the chapter about the Falkenbachs simultaneaously.

Miraculously, nothing burned or turned to ashes while he was frowning upon the book.

How the Falkenbachs had become the Saltzmans without anyone knowing about it remained a mystery, but people marry and women take their husband name's. Ric surely knew about that as well. As he had known since the beginning that the Petrovas chapter wasn't the only one that had caught his wife's interest.

Damon was a bit relieved. What the book said, considering it was accurate of course, added up to his best friend's story.

Ric had been honest the other day.

Still, they'll need to have a serious and long talk one of those days.


	17. Merciless, relentless, remorseless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> set in 2x15 and 2x16  
> Consider that I'm going to separate 2x16 this way: the Martins' death is in this chapter, but the part where Jenna argues with Ric will be later, with one or two days in the middle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now I'm about to mess with the timeline for real. Feel free to warn me if I'm not precise enough about it. It doesn't mean that what I don't talk about didn't happen as in the show.  
> I'm not quite satisfied with this chapter's writing... I'll try to read it again tomorrow, maybe I'll like it better.

When Alaric daggered the Original through the back of the chair, he wasn't thinking about it.

He was more worried about Jenna who was in the kitchen, and could come back any time soon. Worried about the way she was acting as if nothing was wrong, and yet it was obvious there was something. Worried that he would never be able to be honest with her, not only about the whole supernatural bullshit everyone was in except her, but also about what was wrong with him.

Let's be realistic. No one would want to share their life with a perfect assassin, aside from Isobel, but she was kind of nuts too, and in the end, she had left him nonetheless.

The blade had made a hole in the chair.

Damon'd have to deal with it. After all, he was the one that had lured Elijah in a murderous trap. And as dangerous as being a Saltzman made him, the hunter was still human. Surprise would never have been enough to deal with the thousand years old vampire, and since Ric only had to bother with Jenna not seeing Elijah “Smith” getting murdered, he had the possiblity to be creative.

The Original went stone gray, with bulging veins under his skin.

Alaric withdraw the dagger from Elijah's back and from the chair, and cleaned it with a napkin.

When he looked up, John Gilbert, Andie Star and Damon were motionless, shocked and apparently a bit terrified. Not Damon, of course. The vampire was only motionless and shocked.

No time to stay still, they had a body to hide in the basement. Jenna wasn't done with the dessert yet, but she would be at some point, and that surely wasn't something she needed to see.

Damon closed the door of the basement cell behind him.

He actually had seen it, when Ric had daggered the Original.

The emptiness that the book was talking about. The emptiness he had witnessed many times already, but never while the hunter was killing someone in cold blood. The absence of everything that made a human being in Alaric's eyes. The stillness of his face. His way of moving, perfectly efficient and unhesitant.

The teacher was right. A Saltzman simply kills, and then it's done.

Damon wasn't the only one that was startled by what just happened.

Andie had recovered fast, still compelled, and had gone to the kitchen to keep Jenna busy.

John was the one that had been fun to observe. The vampire didn't know what the man had in mind, and that was certainly something someone would be sorry for in the near futur, but his face... A man swallowing, shock, panic and triumph painted on his face at the same time was something you didn't get to see very often. He had looked like he had succeeded in making a point about Alaric, though. That wasn't good news, but... John Gilbert terrified by a fellow human being, that was something Damon would never forget.

As he would never forget how much it hurt when the hunter reminded him that he was his only friend. Only his friend was actually worst, but no way he'd say it out loud.

They went back upstairs.

The dinner finished strangely, Jenna wondering why exactly Elijah had left, and no one undeceiving her. Everybody left. Damon had to thanks Stefan for preventing him from dying tonight. He was almost deploring he hadn't told his brother he had been planning to kill the Original the very night the info on how the dagger would kill him if he went after Elijah was discovered.

No vampire could kill an Original with the dagger without dying himself. Thank you very much for the tips, Johnathan Gilbert, even if you didn't intend to help.

John Gilbert, on the other hand, would pay for this, one way or another.

Speaking of the Gilbert father / uncle / whatever, the man was so full of bad ideas he was provoking a disaster at the Gilbert's, between Alaric and Jenna.

And Alaric really didn't appreciate it.

Jenna was in her room, Elena was at the lake house with Stefan, Jeremy was nowhere to be seen, and the teacher was fed up with his life being wasted once again because of John. Last time was when the man had lead Isobel to a vampire, and then, no more wife.

John Gilbert, pouring himself a glass of red wine in the kitchen, as if he hadn't heard about enough red fluid during the last hour.

The hunter caressed the Gilbert ring that had saved his life twice already. He took it off, and wished he could wipe out the conceited smile of the man's face.

“Your ring.”

Elena's father, really?

Knowing that Isobel was her mother, and this man her father, Alaric might have stopped to believe in heredity. Yes, the teenager looked quite alike Isobel, but she was destined to be such a better person than her parents...

Ric grimaced.

Isobel too seemed to be someone decent, even if a bit strange, back then.

He was going to leave the ring to John, but didn't gave it.

Anger. Resentment. Rage.

He had a better idea.

John Gilbert would need the ring after what he had done to Damon.

Didn't mean it would protect the man from just anything, did it? Furthermore, if the man wasn't wearing it, whack, no more pain in the ass.

Alaric dropped the ring seven to eight inches above the glass of wine. John didn't react, dumbfouded when reddish liquid splaterred his shirt.

Ric seized him by the collar, and pinned him against the wall easily. The man didn't react, frightened, when his glass meet with the floor and shattered with a disturbing sound.

“I wonder... How much Isobel told you about me?”

The teacher was in no mood to be a good man. There is this much a man can withstand.

Alaric could deal with the supernatural. He could deal with his wife being an undead bitch, with his best friend being a vampire, with his step-daughter / whatever being an ingredient in an ancient ritual, but no one was allowed to add anything to the mixture.

John certainly wasn't allowed to blast his relationship with Jenna.

The teacher squeezed more fiercely the man's throat, then released him just so he could catch his breath and answer.

“How wonderful you were, and you can't imagine how much I envied you. But guess what? You weren't so special, after all. Faking her death! That's one way to show how little she truly cared for you! But, I don't know, you seem to be a pretty violent man... Maybe that's why she left?”

Mister was going to be a douchebag? Really? Not that great.

After all, Ric could do worse.

He didn't have to. As soon as he began reaffirming his grip, John let panic take over.

“Wait-wait-wait... She said nothing else, I promise!”

The hunter released John, and took a step back.

Gilbert-jackass lead his hands to his neck, breathless.

“You're crazy...”

Alaric let a pernicious, creepy smile invade his face.

“There is one more thing she didn't tell you about me, but she definitely knew, since she left me a clue in her office, at Duke.”

He reached out for a kitchen knife that had caught John's eye.

“There isn't a soul in my father's family that has never taken a life.”

Well, the kids hadn't, but they would one day, so, all the same.

“We're very gifted when it comes to killing, and, as much as I don't like it, I can assure you it's pretty useful sometimes. Ruthless vampires, conceited werewolves, problematic witches, it isn't simple to keep up with all that. Being merciless, relentless, remorseless helps a lot.”

The hunter planted the knife in the wood of some kitchen furniture and walked away.

If that wasn't enough of a threat, he wouldn't know what to do next.

Well, for now, it was time to go and sleep.

The sleep wasn't exactly relaxing. Alaric spend half of his night tossing and turning, his shoulder aching like hell to the point where he was seriously considering amputation, with a knife if he had to, or even a chainsaw for what it mattered. But around two a.m., the pain slowly became less unbearable, and when he woke up in the morning, everything was alright.

He was sore, sure, but it didn't hurt anymore. And the swollen skin around his scar was only a bit red. Ric wouldn't complain about that.

The day went by slowly.

In the evening, he met with Damon, who was upset like hell. The arrival of Elena a little later explained it all.

It was the-vampiric-version-of-Elena-that-wasn't-Elena. In other words, Katherine.

How she got out of the Tomb, why she was helping, what were her intentions, no idea, but his best friend could certainly explain that later. Because things got a little out of hand when an angry warlock walked into the grill. Explosions, flashes, wounded people.

Nothing really out of the ordinary. Except that Damon was staring at him. Ric frowned.

“Do I have something on my face?”

The vampire chuckled.

“No you don't. But there are things we need to talk about.”

And he handed the teacher the very book he had stolen from him.

Ric took it.

He should have known the day would come.

A bookmark had been placed between the pages. As the hunter expected, Falkenbachs chapter.

He sighed.

“Not her...”

Damon interrupted him, an angry look on his face.

“Don't you dare add not now to what you've been saying.”

“I won't. But we need to get out of here first. I don't want anyone to hear what has nothing to do with them. It's all about me, my family, my problem. And you're the only one I'll tell, you got it?”

The vampire snorted. The children had enough problems on their own, for sure.

“Great. So, let's go somewhere else, because I'm fed up with people never choosing me over anyone.”

What he meant by that was so obvious, the tone he used was so bitter, the way he looked at bystanders as if they were making fun of him, and heaven knows what happens when Damon is tense, that Alaric thought things were going to go wrong again if he didn't stop his friend from tearing into someone neck just because of one askance look. Frustation wasn't Damon's thing, for sure.

“Stop it already, Damon! You almost died yesterday. You should be angry at Katherine, not at your brother. The fact that she was confined in the Tomb is no excuse. The late ones can be blamed, the sick ones can be blamed, the punished ones can be blamed. The guilty ones must be blamed. You have every rights to feel murderous. You don't have to murder anyone, you can't murder anyone, you won't murder anyone. But you will be angry. You have to be angry, because that is what make you human.”

“You realize I'm a vampire, don't you, Ric?”

There was so much sarcasm in his voice the teacher began to wonder if there wasn't something else bothering the vampire. He'd find out later.

“Every vampire is human, even if he isn't a human being anymore. Even your humanity switch is not enough to turn off your humanity. It only buries it deep in your heart. You solely refuse to listen to it, in a way that is way more efficient than any human trick. You still accept every negative feelings. No one can enjoy cruelty without humanity. Each monster that walks this Earth came from the darkest parts of the human heart.”

“You seem to know a lot about that.”

Alaric ignored him, and went on talking.

“You still have feelings, it's just that you don't care about them... until the day the door to your mind breaks from too much pounding.”

But so much suffering could be seen ravaging his face that Damon knew what he had said was a mistake. The hunter was talking about vampires, and yet he wasn't.

“Ric...”

“Being truly inhumane can only be achieved by those that weren't really human to begin with.”

Alaric was talking about himself. About his family. Those that knew no guilt in killing. Those that knew no feeling in killing. Not the least feeling. And many, many feelings about everything else.

Alaric stormed out of the Grill and Damon realized he had once again missed the opportunity for each of them to come clean, at least about some things. Damn.

 


	18. Things I haven't told her

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And because I can't have Stupid and Fool open their heart soon enough, here come some more disturbances.  
> Actually, I'm kidding. My original characters are no filler.

Alaric was on his way to leave the school when he spotted Damon, standing next to the teacher's car. Ric didn't take one second to think about it and turned around.

Everything was falling apart.

Jenna said she was okay, but she wasn't a really good liar. He knew she was having doubts about their relationship, or, more accurately, about him being him and not someone else. And she wasn't exactly wrong. He wasn't telling her the whole truth. Of course, he couldn't tell her that her niece was being targeted by one of the first vampires ever to be used as a sacrifice. Neither could he say that he had no idea what he was going to wear the next day. None of his shirts were clean, actually waiting to be cleaned, or stained with blood.

As if he hadn't enough to deal with just being who he was.

So, he wasn't going to talk with Damon.

Not now.

It wasn't that he didn't want to forgive the vampire for what he had said. Ric wanted to.

But he couldn't. Each time the hunter had tried to talk to Damon again, he had walked away defore successfully saying a word. It didn't make him happy, yet he couldn't.

He wasn't sure why, but he couldn't forgive his best friend. It surely had something to do with him thinking that the vampire should have understood. How exactly, he couldn't say. But Alaric had this feeling that no one else in town could understand, if Damon couldn't.

He could as well go home.

Boston. Home. It wasn't funny at all. Boston was not supposed to feel like home anymore.

Alaric squinted his eyes. Maybe he'd better come to work with a blood-stained shirt tomorrow, if only he could trade what he had just seen with an illusion or a trick of his mind that'd come to him because he had been thinking of Boston in return.

Nope. No illusion. Shit. Gal had found him.

Or maybe he should have been glad. He kind of needed a friend, right now, that wasn't called Damon, and, if possible, wasn't involved in any of his normal and supernatural drama.

Gal was a young woman, a little younger than he was, with a first name that was even stranger than his, an old, very old, really old sounding given name. He had always called her Gal, as she had asked him to years before. She had shoulder length blond hair, beautiful chestnut eyes with impressive lashes, and she always had this kind, considerate, almost sad smile on her face.

And right now, she was parking her car while staring at him intensely.

How the hell she had found out about his whereabouts was an interesting question, but well. They hadn't seen each other in something like five years now, and she hadn't changed a bit. How she had managed to get some free time from New York was also an interesting question, but once again, none of his concern. The fact that she was wearing those amazing clothes, as always, was of his concern: now that she had rejoined him, his students were staring at them with awe in their eyes.

Alaric tried to say something, but couldn't. He really had to deal with the slap that reddened his left cheek first.

“That was for disappearing without a word. Now, we can talk.”

Gal, nice and thoughtful? The teacher must have been out of his mind when he had thought she was.

And of course, the ruckus had called for Damon's attention, who hadn't noticed him up till now.

“Ric, who is this fine lady?”

The vampire chuckling wasn't what he needed to hear right now.

“This fine lady is Gal. I've known her since I was a child, so please, be polite, Damon.”

“You know me, always the gentleman.”

Alaric sneered at that, but didn't say anyhting.

Whatever. Miss and Mister were already staring at each other, almost checking each other out. Better off not interrupting them. The hunter thought he might as well sneak off while they were busy being rude. But by the time he made his mind, it was too late.

Damon grabbed the hunter's arm as he was taking a step away.

“Don't you dare to run away, Alaric. We have things to discuss. By the way, nice earrings you have here.”

Alaric watched them without being able to understand what was going on. Gal had always had those earrings, as far as he could remember, tiny, blue, round earrings. In fact, they were kind of plain compared to her outfit. A sleeveless vertically striped black and gray suit this day, with a pork pie black hat. Priceless, from what he could deduce from the cutting.

Which fashion designer was it this time?

It didn't actually matter, but being a fashion photographer was obviously a well-paid job.

Alaric started wondering how he had ended up knowing only weirdos.

Meanwhile, Gal smirked. The man wanted to go there? She could do as much.

“Not as interesting as your ring. Is it hundred years old or what?”

“Around one hundred and seventy. Who are you again?”

Ric tried once more to sneak off. It didn't work this time either. Truth to be told, he felt like Damon was being more and more clingy as the conversation between the two designer clothing wearers was becoming heated. That was strange, and even becoming a bit awkward.

“My name is Galswinthe. Now, if you could let go of Ric, I'd like to spend some time with him. You know, catching up and all, between lifetime friends...”

“Well, you'll have to put up with me. I too have things I need to talk about with Ric. You know, important stuff and all, between best friends.”

Were they arguing over him? Really?

“Now that's enough.”

And without further ado, Alaric shook his arm to get the vampire to let go of him, and walked away.

Damon and Gal were speechless for over thirty seconds, then they looked angrily at each other and went their separate ways.

The vampire considered going home, but he needed a drink, and a lot of noise, so that he wouldn't be able to distinguish his own thoughts from the hubbub. The Grill was a better option.

There were so many things he needed to talk about with Alaric.

About the Klaus issue. About the Falkenbachs. About how he was sorry for what he had said.

About his feelings for the man.

No.

That, he wouldn't talk about.

Ever.

Still, he couldn't stop worrying about this woman, Gal, Alaric's friend, as the two of them had said. She was suspect. And not only because of the earrings. Blue earrings were surely pretty common. But she seemed to be so close with the hunter...

Damon grumbled, casting a last look at the dubious woman with the fancy outfit.

Classy, to tell the truth. Fucking rich people.

Oh, wait.

He was in no position to criticize.

Gal waited a little before heading for Ric's loft.

She was worried. The kid had really seemed drained, as if he had no life left in him. And that man... all over Alaric. Owning a blue ring that could as well be made of lapis lazuli. As if a Saltzman hadn't enough trouble on his own.

She had kept an eye on Ric for almost thirty years now. It hadn't always been simple. Watching over the whole Saltzman family wasn't what she would have called a safe task. But it was her family duty. And she was happy to do it. Moreover, she really cared for the kid. He wasn't like those freaks from the main house.

Keeping an eye on Theodoric wasn't something she enjoyed. Alaric, or Cassandre, on the other hand, were good kids, even if unlucky to have been born in this family. Yet, in a way, that reassured Gal, because it meant the Saltzmans weren't mere human scum. As the Falkenbachs hadn't been only murderous assholes.

Really, it meant a lot to her.

And she was definitely worried about this guy, that seemed to be the teacher's friend.

Maybe she had been right to have had Cassandre followed when she had heard the girl'd ask Ric.

Gal reached for her wedding ring, hanging loosely around her neck thanks to a strap, and breathed.

Then she knocked at the door.

Alaric opened the door, expecting Damon, and looked relieved to see it was only Gal.

“Come in.”

He went to the kitchen part of the appartment, poured them some coffee.

“You seem tired, Ric.”

“It's because I am. Things ain't exactly peaceful around Mystic Falls, and I'm having trouble with the girl I love. You know, because of things I haven't told her.”

Gal watched him as he sat on the sofa.

The man was really astonishing. Blue eyes, almost blond hair, and a face... Strangely, she was a bit proud of him being such a handsome man. He looked a little like her husband had. As for men's secrets, she'd had liked to know the truth about Hans before it was too late. She couldn't blame the hunter's girlfriend for being pushy about it.

Well, maybe there wouldn't have been a later between her and Hans if she had known beforehand.

There are some truths no one would ever accept.

Some people chose not to acknowledge what wasn't to their liking. Others decided to shut people who are unlike them out of their life. And there were the ones that condamned any differences with death penalty.

Life wasn't always easy.

For Alaric, out of all people, it would never be a serene path.

“By the way, I went back to training.”

The teacher saw Gal stiffen.

He knew she would react this way.

Gal was one of the rare persons who were still there for him after the whole story at the bank. She had always been here, and she was the one who had told him that maybe he should try to make his body less of a weapon by staying out of shape.

“Why would you do that?”

Alaric took a sip of coffee, thinking.

They hadn't seen each other for quite a long time. Maybe she didn't know about Isobel's disappearance. If she did, she'd surely have worked it out by now.

“My wife went missing. She's probably dead. I saw her with a man in our bedroom just before she disappeared. And there was blood on the sheets.”

Isobel was't missing. She had faked her death. She wasn't probably dead. She was. And yet she wasn't. She was a vampire. The man wasn't a man. He was a vampire. He was his best friend. He was the guy from before. He had turned Isobel. And slept with her. And Ric had known for something like half a year already.

That he wasn't going to tell Gal.

How could he, even if he had wanted to?

“I'm so sorry to hear that. Is that why you came here, in the middle of nowhere?”

She seemed really concerned.

And she was. The hunter knew Gal was always geguine about everything, as long as it concerned feelings. He didn't always know why she would feel personally offended because of something that had been told to him, or why she cared so much about him. But do you inquire your friends' motivations? If you do, then you're certainly a lonely person.

Unless the friend is called Damon Salvatore, but that was a story for another time.

“I needed a change of pace.”

That wasn't completely false. That wasn't completely true either.

And Gal knew it.

Alaric could see it in her eyes. He hadn't bothered lying with enough conviction about that. He didnt' need to. He didn't want to. If he wasn't willing to talk freely this day, he would be one day, and Gal knew it. She only had to wait. People like Ric weren't the best with honesty.

It wasn't an issue for either of them.

 


	19. Deal with it, or walk away

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some explanations, finally...

Early in the morning, Damon decided that hell, he was going to have this talk with Alaric despite any form of disturbances that would try to prevent him from doing so. Be it a blond woman with blue earrings, or a young doppelganger desperate to sacrifice herself to save everybody in the damn world, the vampire wouldn't listen.

And that's how he ended up on Alaric's doorstep at five a.m..

Maybe it was not his smartest move.

It was definitely not his smartest move, and the look the hunter gave him when he opened the door was filled with resentment.

“Maybe you forgot that, Damon, but human beings need to sleep if they want to stay alive.”

“I'm not going to leave until we have that discussion. Besides, you're already awake, so why not take the opportunity?”

“Wrong, I'm still sleeping. Can't you see how I don't look at you right now? It's because you're only a part of my dream that has decided to harass me during my well-earned rest. So fuck off and let me get some deserved sleep.”

The idea of being a part of Ric's dream almost overwhelmed the vampire's brain, but he would not let the man's not-exactly-trick-since-the-hunter-didn't-know-how-much-it-affected-him-but-yet deceives him. The two of them had played around for too long now.

“Alaric, we need to talk, and I'd rather do it before your lifetime adorable blondie friend takes you away once more.”

Damon repressed the urge to just kiss the teacher in order to make him understand it wasn't a dream, because he was pretty sure that Alaric would right away deduce it was actually a nightmare if he did. Damn, he wanted those lips on his owns so much... that he wasn't thinking straight anymore.

Damon really needed to pull himself together, before he do something stupid. Such as, blowing up the only friendship he had had in decades by foolishly falling in love with his friend. Oops, that was already the case. Then, letting the said friend know about his feelings for him on a whim. Because there was no way Ric would love him back.

“You really don't like her, do you?”

“She's dubious as hell, and if you can't see it, that only makes her even more of a suspect.”

“Suspect of what?”

“See, I told you.”

Alaric refrained himself from saying that Damon wasn't making sense.

“I put some clothes onand I'm all yours.”

Damon gulped. That had sounded so ambiguous in so many ways he simply didn't want to think about it. Strange, how everything seems full of allusions, when you're with the one you secretly love, before sunrise.

“Yeah, you do that.”

He saw Alaric frown as his voice was shaking, but the man said nothing and pushed the door closed.

The vampire leaned against the corridor wall.

His heart was beating so fast, he hadn't experienced that for ages. Maybe he had never really felt this way before. Katherine had been compelling, ironic as it could seem, but she had given him what he wanted pretty quickly. In his heart, Elena had been all about jealousy and frustration. Ric...

Alaric was different.

Sure, there was jealousy, frustation about him being with Jenna. Sure, Damon could feel how much he yearned for his body, as he had for the doppelganger bitch's, or, maybe, not exactly in the same way, obviously, but entrancing still.

But it was mostly despair that was driving the vampire mad. Just being in the same piece was enough to make him feel safe, and torn apart at the same time. With Ric, he wasn't playful as he had been with Elena, or even with any of the women he flirted with continuously. He couldn't. Because the teacher wasn't a woman. Because their thing, whatever it was for Alaric, had begun in a very particular way, one of them trying to kill the other, and being killed by the said other. Because the truth was that sometimes Damon was a coward. Because he wouldn't be able to endure another broken heart.

Because making a move would shatter their fragile friendship forever.

Alaric's face.

Handsome, handsome face. Wonderful eyes. And that smile!

Breathing heavily, Damon felt that something down there was reacting to his thoughts with a little too much enthusiasm. It was definitely not the right time to be horny. Not the right place, either, and as he hadn't been invited in, and well, even if he had been, that would be very dubious, he couldn't use Ric's bathroom...

Bad strategy. Shouldn't be thinking about the very man that had made him like this.

Breathe.

No thoughts about anything dirty, no thoughts about how lewd he wanted Alaric to be with him, no thoughts about any word linked in some way to fucking. Please. He couldn't destroy what they had because of the shitty vampiric libido.

Breathe.

Ric couldn't see him in this state.

The always in control Damon Salvatore, the obnoxious vampire who slept with whoever he wanted as long as he hadn't any feeling for them, the abhorrent jackass with no sentimental attachment, couldn't be believed to be sexually frustrated about anyone.

And certainly not in a corridor of Alaric Saltzman's building.

Inhibiting his urge to fuck his best friend, unless he wanted to be the one that would be fucked, he really had no idea about that, wasn't going to make him feel confortable. What he was certain about, was that it was the only way.

Damon straightened. Trying to look as normal as possible.

Breathe.

Alaric opened his door, a cardboard box under his right arm, and saw a fidgeting vampire.

“You need to calm down, man. The world won't end because you have ten more minutes to wait before knowing the whole truth. Or, rather, what I know about it, which isn't much.”

Damon smiled. He had to be patient, he knew that. Not about that, though. And what he was waiting for would never happen. He knew this too.

“So what, we're going somewhere?”

It hurt a little that Ric still wouldn't let him in. But the hunter surely hadn't even thought about the possibility. He wasn't doing it on purpose.

“Just outside. I don't want to think about what I'm going to discuss with you in my apartment. It'd feel like I'm staining it with my sins, and I'm not sure I could still sleep in my bed after that.”

Ric said nothing about the fact that he kept the carton box of shame under the very same bed. That wasn't exactly something Damon needed to know.

When the hunter tried to lock his door without letting go of his cardboard box, he lost his balance.

Damon rushed to get a hold of the escaping box, but ended up catching Ric instead.

“Don't try to postpone this conversation by tripping over and breaking some of your bones.”

“I'm not trying to destroy my body, if that's what you're insinuating.”

The vampire smirked, or at least tried to. If only touching wasn't a very effective stimulant, he could have behaved as usual, a snarky comment here, some more teasing there. But no, feeling Alaric's musculature through the man's shirt, having his left hand in the teacher's back, under his jacket, so that Ric wouldn't fall on the ground, was too much.

Breathe.

“I'm okay now. Thanks, Damon, really, but don't you think you could let me stand up again?”

Yup, he should totally do that, because that was becoming awkward. And not only the situation. There was still this bad, mean thing down there, that was reacting in a way it definitely shouldn't.

Damon helped his best friend to get back on his feet and took a step back.

“Sorry, Ric. Better now?”

“Once again, thanks. I guess I'm more ill-at-ease than I thought I was...”

Damon snorted. The teacher wasn't the only one to be ill-at-ease, but he wasn't going to tell him about it, of course. Nothing could be more embarassing than having to explain to your secret love / best male friend that you're having a boner because of them, right?

The arrival of Vanessa Monroe, if quite surprising, was the perfect turn-off.

They had merely made it to the stairs when the young woman stormed in the building, and, a sheaf of papers in hand, glared at them.

The hell she was doing at five and thirty in Mystic Falls was enough of a mystery in and of itself, but the history teacher had gotten used to seeing people popping out into his life lately.

“Don't say a word. I'll talk to you too.”

She seemed outraged, but stayed silent.

Alaric looked for a public bench. So early in the day, he didn't really had to worry about who might hear what he was going to say. No one was to be seen, the three of them put aside.

“Sit down, and talk. Damon, you begin.”

If anyone could have seen them, they'd be amazed by the natural authority given off by the hunter. He was so cold, strict, indifferent, with his neutral face on, that even the vampire didn't thought of protesting. And, well, Damon wanted to know everything about Ric so badly he didn't really care.

“The Falkenbach Curse is strangely similar to your family's. Care to explain?”

“Easy one. The Saltzmans are the Falkenbachs. When one of their girls disappeared back in the eighteenth century, her death was reported three month later, but it was a mistaken identity. Next.”

“I've seen your scar. Is that ritual a real thing?”

Alaric frowned, wondering when exactly his friend might have spotted it. Then he remembered their trip to Duke, and the toilet booth. He had thought Damon was craving for blood way to much to notice anything, as the scar was on the back of his shoulder, but he had apparently been mistaken.

“No idea. But we all do it after our first kill, for various reasons. Most of us think it's only a symbolic act, but the last guy who decided it wasn't worth the pain, turned out to be a psychopath, no feelings at all, so we do it without asking questions. That was what had brought my cousin here: she needed someone's help to carve the symbol into her flesh. Any more questions?”

Damon thought about it for a short minute, then answered he hadn't anything else to say.

That wasn't the actual truth. He also wanted to ask why Ric's scar had tortured him for hours. But he didn't want anyone to know he was stalking the teacher, because that was gross.

Ric stared at him for some more time, almost scanning the vampire's behavior in search of a clue.

Then he turned around to face Vanessa, took her notes before she could prevent him from doing so.

Not only notes. Pics, too.

Isobel, once again.

“I guess you found this amongst my wife's stuff?”

It was a picture of him, bare chested as he was fixing their house's sink, and you could clearly see the scar, the damn scar, that designated him a member of the Falkenbach Family.

Or Saltzman Family, but it was ultimately the same thing.

And that was why Vanessa had come in a rush from Duke.

“You let me waste my time searching for things you already knew!”

Alaric sighed.

The girl was way too impulsive.

He opened the cardboard box, took some papers out of it, searched for the shirt he knew was in there, spotted with blood. Found it.

“Take a look.”

The young woman gave the newspaper articles a disdainful look, and went back to staring at the teacher fiercely. Damon, on the other hand, squinted his eyes at the picture on the front page.

“This boy... it's you, Ric?”

Damn right. It was a teenager, half covered in blood, hiding his face from the reporters' cameras.

“I cut a man's throat open with a hunting knife. His head was still on his shoulders for one reason: the knife wasn't enough to break his spine. You think I like to introduce myself this way? As a guy who can kill a human being with no hesitation? I told you to stay away from all this and no, you wouldn't listen to me. So don't be unfair, Vanessa. You hadn't to research this book, you knew it and I told you so. Yet you decided you wanted to know more. Now you do. Deal with it, or walk away.”

 


	20. Because today is sunday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry, Ric. I worsened your life a little more. You won't mind, will you?

Damon was kind of ashamed of himself for thinking that Ric was even sexier when he pictured the hunter covered in blood. Not that it wasn't the truth, blood really suited him. But now wasn't the time, everybody was serious as hell, so maybe the vampire should keep his fantasies down.

“Can I ask a question, Mr Saltzman?”

And there he was, ruining the mood. Damon really couldn't behave, could he?

Alaric raised an eyebrow, not even annoyed. When you are friends with Damon Salvatore, you learn to be tolerant pretty fast.

“How come you're here with us, moreover a high school teacher, if you killed a man before the eyes of dozens of people?”

“If you know how to read, you'll find the answer in this article.”

“I'm illiterate.”

As hell he was. But Alaric wasn't in the mood to feel offended. After all, he knew how to deal with his best friend's cheekiness. He had had a lot of practice.

“I'll play along, then. Hold-up in a bank, one of the perp threatened a child when the police arrived, and things were going bad for his accomplices, so he shot a man in the leg and turned his weapon to the kid's face. He had this knife in his other hand, I was on the floor, next to him, and I did what I thought was the best at the time. The other perpetrators had been knocked out, but we were too far away, the police wouldn't make it in time. I caught his leg, pulled him to the ground, he struggled, I snapped his wrist, he tried to shoot me, I had my hand on the knife. He shot the ground next to my head. I sliced his throat. End of story.”

For the man it really had been end of story.

For the teenager, it had lead to a very particular outcome. He wasn't an adult to begin with, and his family wasn't to be taken lightly. He had saved a child's life, as it later appeared that the assaulter had a record which seemed to denote a certain tendency to extreme violence. It was clearly a case of self-defense, the bullet impact on the floor of the bank could attest to it.

No charges could be brought against him, but rumors couldn't be avoided. People were saying things behind his back, how odd it was that the boy in the pictures looked a bit like the student that hadn't come to school since the hold-up, why anyone was forbidden from seeing Ric. The police and the psychologist he had been sent to to make sure he was okay after what had happened were giving him the cold shoulder because he actually was okay. Sometimes, it's better to be traumatized.

Saying it out loud made Ric feel relieved. Complaining could be a great way to let off some steam.

“So you're kind of a human killing machine, if I got it right?”

That hurt. A lot. And it was true. It was so fucking true Damon could see the shame in Alaric's eyes.

But the way Vanessa said it wasn't harsh or anything. Actually, she was more like sparlkles in the eyes and repressed smile from ear to ear. She was way too enthusiastic for someone who just heard there were psychos out there who were pretty much born to kill.

As Isobel had been obsessed with people that ate humans.

Let's hope Vanessa wouldn't end up being a soulless bitch one of those days.

The only answer Ric gave her was throwing a shirt stained with dried blood, which was way too small for him, in her arms. It looked like someone had bleed all of their blood on it. And it was probably the case.

“You still have the clothes you wore back then?”

“If you read the book Isobel had in her drawer carefully, you'd know we have our rituals. Keeping what has been desecrated during our first kill is a custom most of us still follow, though I don't have the knife, since it's a piece of evidence.”

Alaric guessed the young woman was just going to annoy him some more when she finally yawned.

Fatigue save the natural born killer.

“Sorry, I haven't sleep for hours. Maybe I should look for a motel or something.”

And so she left them, alone, in a square, at dawn. Damon and the teacher exchanged a glance. This girl really was trouble.

Alaric rolled his eyes, and packed his stuff inside the cardboard box once again.

They went back to the loft, so that he could hid the box under his bed as usual. Damon was contemplating an early bourbon party, since his friend was wide awake thanks to him.

But they found Gal waiting for Ric at his doorstep, fully awake too.

The hunter checked his watch. Six in the morning.

She was wearing some high price clothing, very classy and all, still no sleeves, but a dress this time.

Gal glanced at the carton box. There was no way she wouldn't have recognized it. That, added to the suspicious ring wearing friend, and to the early hour, was dubious.

“What are you doing here at this hour?”

Damon was the one who had spoken first, and already Ric could see where this was going. No way he was going to enjoy a peaceful morning, right? Well, maybe if he hadn't lived in Mystic Falls. But shit, he lived there, and you have no peaceful times in Mystic Falls. When no one was trying to murder half of the town, therestill was someone whose life was in danger somewhere, and when no one was about to die, people used their free time to have sentimental drama scenes.

Why was Alaric out at such an early hour? Gal could have returned the question, but no, she wouldn't, because she was a polite person.

Instead, she looked at the teacher.

“Do you know why I came yesterday?”

“Because you had a vacation?”

“Because today is sunday, and you, Alaric, have no kids to teach history to. So I'm going to have my way with you, and you will comply, as you always do.”

That sounded so ambiguous to Damon that the vampire stiffened and gulped.

Ric, on the other hand, let out a vivid “No!” and locked himself in his apartment.

Gal raised an eyebrow, amused. Trying to escape, once again. She'd have to play the friendship card to get her favorite kid to do what she wanted sooner than expected.

“Come on, Ric. You know I need to relax too. It's been five years, it's not like I'd asked you to do that every single day. The guys I work with in New York are great and all, but they're terrible at the same time, I won't do that, I'm a star, if it's no good it's because of you, not because of me, and so on and so forth...”

No answer.

Damon frowned, dumbfounded.

“What exactly do you want to do with him?”

Gal cocked her head slightly to the left. She had almost forgotten the man was here too.

“I'm a photographer, and mister-reluctant is awesome when I can get him to dress appropriately and posture. And when I say awesome, I mean it.”

Damon could totally agree to that. He needed to see Alaric modeling now that the woman had evoked the idea. But he couldn't imagine him doing that...

“I'm kind of baffled by the idea of Ric posturing, to tell you the truth. He's always so discreet...”

Gal grinned. Of course, no one would think that the man was able to be so yummy just because she'd ask him to.

“Well, that's because you've never met Sexylaric.”

And Damon blushed.

Damn.

Damon blushed.

Damn Damon blushed.

Damned damn Damon blushed because a woman had talked about his Alaric as “Sexylaric”.

And Gal couldn't overlook that. Let's turn the tables. Right now.

“What exactly do you want with him?”

The vampire tensed, and, on guard, replied.

“I asked first.”

The second his mouth shut, Damon saw Ric's friend move incredibly fast, faster than any human could, faster than any werewolf could, even faster than he could. Before he could do anything, a hand was strangling him to what would have been death if he had needed to breathe, and he was pinned against the wall.

Galswinthe had those black veins under her eyes, and sharp fangs revealed by a ferocious grin.

Damon coughed blood. He most likely had a misplaced bone somewhere around his stomach, according to the pain. The unexpected collision with the wall had done damage, and some of his internal organs had been pierced by a broken rib.

Gal was strong as hell. Stronger than Damon. Stronger than Lexi. Stronger than Katherine, even.

Damon went vampire-mode too, and the grip became even more fierce. He really couldn't do anything, so he reversed to his human face.

Gal loosened her grip a little.

“Blue earrings. I wasn't mistaken.”

Damon's voice was weak.

“Blue ring. The Bennett Family goes way back.”

So each of them had been right about the other: both of them were vampires, and both of them were interested in Ric. How, exactly, they had no idea, but for sure, they would find out.

Galswinthe wasn't going to let any vampire near her beloved kid.

“Let me ask again: what do you want with my descendant?”

Damon's eyes widened.

It wasn't so strange. Vampires were beings that had existed for centuries, and the woman was obviously pretty old. Many humans surely had one or two fanged ancestors, or at least fanged distant cousins in their family tree.

But most of the time, vampires cut ties with their family, and if not right away, they did it after one or two centuries. If the Salvatores brothers hadn't done so yet, it was only because of convenience. And, well, Damon had kind of severed the family tree latey, so this wasn't going to be of his concern anymore. Now that he thought about it, he felt bad for killing Zach.

A blow to his stomach forced him to reconsider his priorities.

As well as Gal's tone did.

“Seeing as he showed you that box, I guess you know he's cursed, and he knows you're not human, am I right?”

“I'm the one who... turned... his wife... when she asked me to. He tried... to kill me, ... stuff happened, and now we're... besties.”

This time it was Gal who was astonished, so astonished she let him go.

Damon took a look at the woman's shoulders. No scar. Not a Falkenbach.

After a short respite, no more than one minute, she was back on track, and if she wasn't threatening him physically anymore, her tone wasn't exactly gentle.

“You compelled him?”

“Why would I do that!? And he has vervain on him all the time, anyway.”

“Good. You're so clingy around him I was wondering if you weren't using him as your personal blood bank. If you had been, I should have taken measures, of course.”

Damon wasn't going to ask what she meant when she had said measures. He had a very good idea, that wasn't to his liking at all.

“I'm not clingy.”

And that sounded so false even he could hear it.

Damn it, he was being clingy.

How Alaric hadn't noticed anything yet was completely uncomprehensible.

Speaking of the hunter, Alaric opened his door again, finally resigned to accept to take part in Gal's modeling entertainment.

Gal and Damon were sitting on the floor of the corridor, with strange looks on their faces, and for once, the one who had been attacked was Damon, as the laceration in his t-shirt attested.

None of them reacted when Ric closed the door. None of them said a word when he opened it again.

It wasn't an hallucination.

Or it was a pretty persistent one.

“If what I see right now means what I think it means, we should go and plunder your wine cellar, Damon, because I feel I'll need a drink very soon.”


	21. The day had been silent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I just send Alaric to Nervousbreakdownland? Oops.  
> Well, it's not like he will have time to dwell on it.

“Right.”

No. Nothing was right. Nothing was ever right in Alaric Saltzman's life. Everything was wrong. Always. If a single thing had ever been right, he woud have known.

Looking at Gal through his glass of bourbon, the teacher was seeing disrupted images of the one that was supposed to be his oldest friend ever. Pretty close to the reality, those images. Everything he knew about Gal was disrupted, now.

“You're a vampire.”

Galswinthe looked away. As if it could erase the last events.

“Did you compel me not to notice you weren't ageing?”

She didn't say anything, but the twitch that won over the right corner of her mouth was enough of a give away. To be accurate, she had been compelling every generation of her family for something like seven or eight centuries.

“Ric...”

“What is it, Damon? I'm busy wondering how I might kill myself because my life makes no sense, so please don't interrupt me.”

“She said she was your ancestor.”

Alaric switched his stare to his best friend, not sure if he should take it seriously or not.

Damon was trying really hard not to fidget as the hunter's eyes were examining him under every angle. It was bad enough that he was feeling as if he had insulted his betrothed's family on their first meeting, which wasn't exactly true since Ric was definitely not his fiance, but wasn't exactly false either, since he had made a very bad first impression on a distant relative. No need to make things worse by letting his best friend discover he was head over heels for him.

Whatever Damon was trying to hide, it wasn't working very well. Sure, Alaric had no idea why the vampire's eyes were turning in all directions, as if to escape his owns. But it was so obvious there was something even Ric couldn't just not see it.

And Gal saw it too.

Slowly understanding what was going on with the younger vampire, she interrupted their eyeing minuet and took the blame for what she had done. Figuratively speaking, of course.

“My... family merged with the Falkenbach Family centuries ago. And I'm one of the rare vampires that chose to turn instead of dying because their children were too young to be left behind. When my only daughter died, I thought of walking into the sun, but I had grown fond of my grandchildren, and their children after them... Now I'm always keeping an eye on the kids.”

Ric frowned, and didn't see how relieved Damon was when he broke their eye contact.

“Wait a second... You always keep your wedding ring with you... but you're saying you'd have left your daughter alone if you died. Where was he at the time?”

Damn. She really couldn't throw the kid off the trail, could she? Sometimes Gal wished the history nerd in Alaric wasn't so prompt to grasp the implications.

“We died that night. Hans and I. We chose to be undead rather than leaving our six years old Leona to die alone in the woods. But when she died of old age...”

Damon understood quickly what the silence meant. Switch. Alaric's great-great-great-whatever-grandfather was certainly dead by now, if his wife was still all by herself, seeing how much she seemed to love him, just from the sound of her voice. The humanity switch only worked for some decades. If he had come back to his senses, he would have been with Gal.

And he wasn't.

“So you're the family type, like Stefan.”

Because Damon wasn't exactly the family type, right. In fact, he was more of the family murdering type. But his brother had had his heyday too, when he killed their father. Granted, it hadn't exactly been his fault. But yet.

Damon guessed he could have been a family loving guy, if only his father had been a family loving guy. Because the vampire was, always had been, would forever be the kind of guy who became who he was by following the lead. Giuseppe Salvatore had been an uncaring father. Katherine Pierce had been an inhumane lover. His friendships had gone from bad to worse to the worst. And now he was this jackass who didn't care much about his family, his brother put aside, and for humans generally.

Not exactly the dream lover, or even dream best friend, was he?

“Stefan?”

“My little brother, who forced me to turn, if you remember well, Ric. Saint Stefan ain't so perfect, just for the record.”

“And he offered to help me kill you, too, but you were an asshole who killed people for the simple reason you were frustrated that your unloving girlfriend was trapped in a tomb since 1864, which wasn't true by the way. None of you is perfect, you know.”

“Right, I'm a murderous bastard, and you're a remorseless killer. I guess we're two of a kind.”

Gal couldn't help but be amused by what she was seeing.

Watching her favorite kid from this generation bickering with a young vampire was unexpectedly entertaining. She could totally see why the vampire...

“By the way, Ric said your name was Damon, right?”

The vampire stiffened and turned almost sheepishly towards Gal.

“Damon Salvatore, yes. Why?”

The older vampire had this crooked smile that made the two youngsters shiver.

Yes, she could totally see why Damon was so into his best friend, and she didn't think it was strange at all. She would nonetheless encourage whoever was with Ric at the time, because it was his choice, and she didn't really want the kid to be involved with vampires even more than he already was. But she wasn't going to blame someone for falling in love. Alaric was awesome, and Damon surely hadn't planned to fall in love with his best friend. Hell, it was most likely that he'd have chosen not to if he had had a say in the matter.

As long as the vampire wasn't doing anything bad, there was no reason for her to resent him.

“How old are you, Gal?”

Ric wasn't comfortable with calling her that anymore, but calling her by their family positions would be a bit long. He had no idea how many generations there had been since her time, but surely a lot. If the fact that they looked nothing alike wasn't a reliable deduction element, the fact that she was nowhere in his family tree, that was precise up to the sixteenth century, and that he knew by heart, was a good enough hint of her great age.

“I died in 1285.”

Well.

That was old.

Once his glass of bourbon came to be empty, Alaric left, with a I-don't-care-anymore face on.

Gal thanked Damon for his hospitality, then left as well to go back to the room she had rented in the nearby motel. The look she gave the vampire before leaving left no room for doubt. She knew how he felt about her kid. And she also knew he wouldn't tell anything.

While on his way to his loft, Alaric made his mind. He was going to talk to Jenna. He couldn't tell her everything, he had promised Elena he wouldn't if she wasn't wishing him to do so, and himself, he wasn't really earger to include the young woman in any supernatural farce. But he'd tell her how much he cared for her. That no matter what happened, Isobel was well and truly dead.

He wouldn't add that he wasn't the one who had killed her. Though it was the truth, saying it would make him sound doubtful. Usually, you don't point out that you're not the one who killed your wife unless you want to be suspected.

He told her.

It didn't exactly go well. It didn't exactly go wrong.

Maybe Jenna would believe him, given a little time.

Alaric slept better than he had in days this night. He woke up refreshed. He went to work. Some idiot had wrote salacious things on the blackboard of his classroom, so the teacher cleaned it before the students came in. When Peter sat down, he looked very disappointed that the literary masterpiece wasn't on the board anymore. Alaric said nothing.

The night had been silent.

So would he be.

Sometimes you can just shut up, and if you do that, everything goes smoothly.

At noon, he saw a text on his phone, saying that Isobel was back in town, and had destroyed his last hope with Jenna. Alaric said nothing.

The morning had been silent.

So would he be.

When the classes ended, Elena came to him, completely panicked and even more angry at her mother. She didn't know what to do about her aunt, but she was kind of relieved that the young woman had left town to go and live on the campus. At least she wouldn't be there if things went ugly. Things always went ugly in Mystic Falls.

The hunter tried to calm her a bit, he told her that there was nothing they could do. Ultimately, it was as if he had said nothing.

The day had been silent.

So would he be.

Ric walked to his car.

Isobel.

He should have seen this one coming.

Isobel said things about compelling him, about loving him, about being sorry.

All of his right hand's joints creaked when he smashed her throat with his fist. Of course, it didn't do much, but her grip loosened for a second. Alaric didn't run away, nor he tried to fight back. He simply stood there, looking at her, with those horribly blank eyes.

Everything was collapsing. Once again.

Their love. His loves. She had blasted them all.

And yet Isobel dared to say she loved him?

Maybe she did. She surely did. But she was so broken inside she destroyed everything around her.

Including her husband. Including her daughter.

He could have killed her, in this unique second, when her neck was in such bad shape that blood had escaped from her mouth. He had what he needed. A stake in each of his sleeves. Who said being paranoid wasn't a good thing?

It would have been easy. Staking Isobel in the heart, once and for all. Get rid of her.

But he didn't.

Alaric only stood there, looking at the vampire that had been his wife, that had been a mother for some lonely hours only, that had been human, and, by becoming what she was now, was way worse than any of the vampires he had met so far, Katherine being the exception, but that surely ran in the family. Ric would make sure Elena would remain the compassionate girl she was, if only he were to stay alive long enough.

He had his poker face on, and yet tears were rolling down his face. Salty drop of water, hesitant to leave the shelter of his lashes, but too numerous to stay up there, leaving a trail of misery on his cheeks as they were falling along the curves of his face. Some of them broke the barrier of his lips, and he felt as if their bitterness was a reflection of his mind.

Everything he was was in these tears.

Alaric was nothing, he knew it now.

Because bitterness, anger, sadness, resentment were nothing.

Isobel looked her husband in the eyes.

He had never shown her how terrifying he could be, not even when she had come back into his life to destroy it one more time, some months ago. Because he loved her. Compelled or not was irrelevant. Even compulsion couldn't erase a feeling as strong as his love for her. It only locked it away from his consciousness.

Now, his love was stained with so much hatred he could finally look at her with this terrible look that was the privilege of the Falkenbachs.

The emptiness in his eyes, every other feelings escaping from his being as the tears were running down, taking away what made him human for a moment, made Isobel's heart froze with terror.

She looked away. Walked away. And the hunter felt a terrible pain. Lost consciousness.

 


	22. It's Terror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beginning of 2x18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here comes the part where I'm all get-the-hell-out-of-Alaric-,-Klaus-,-but-that's-cool-'cause-Matt-Davis-is-awesome-even-as-Klaus...

Alaric was asleep.

Was he?

Maybe he wasn't.

He didn't know.

But he wasn't conscious.

Not exactly.

It felt...

As if he was so tired..

That he could...

Only grasp...

A shadow of...

Reality.

Because, obviously, no one was going to explain to him that he was currently being possessed by an original vampire. Klaus hadn't asked for permission, why would he bother to explain that? And, well, it wasn't as if Alaric was in any state to understand anything.

Katherine, compelled, and, why the hell could the body scrounger still compel her when he wasn't even in a vampire's body, let alone an Original's body? watched him complain to his warlock puppet as he delayed the moment of her torture. If only Klaus could be a little less annoyingly himself, she would have enjoyed the sight. The boy he had hijacked was... gorgeous. But the idea of this body torturing her wasn't exactly lovely. And the idea of being tortured by Klaus, even if he wasn't in his own body, wasn't great at all.

“It's been years since I've been in a human body. Something like... the early Thirties? I don't even remember why I did that back then, but what I'm certain of, is that I feel vulnerable. I don't like it. Those humans have freakingly frightening frail bodies. I really, really don't like it.”

Maddox looked like the stupid puppet he was, and that was angering Katherine. You had to be utterly stupid to obey to the Original out of your own free will. Not only he didn't care about what might happen to you, but he also was prompt to kill for one mistake. One single mistake.

Granted, being his enemy wasn't exactly a safe option too, she knew that all too well.

But licking his boots was too much.

“You could have done worse. This body is better than most.”

Klaus and Katherine frowned at the same time. Sure, Alaric Saltzman wasn't a fatso and he had charm, but that was it, wasn't it?

“Better?! I don't know what's his problem, but I feel like my left shoulder is going to explode anytime. If I had known, I'd have found a guy without arthrosis.”

Serves him right. If Katherine couldn't say a word, she could still think freely, and she certainly wasn't going to feel sorry for him. Klaus was an asshole, and hell, if he was going to jump into someone's body without asking if he could first, then he deserved to suffer a little. Or even a lot.

Maddox dared to sigh, the doppelganger was impressed. Idiot puppet had dared to sigh in front of his lord and master. Miracles were real. Well. Not real enough for her to be spared, but at least she could still be sarcastic about things. Sarcasm was fun, so it was cool.

“Not any human.”

“What do you mean?”

“This Alaric Saltzman is as cursed as a human can be.”

Well, that was unexpected. And Katherine was totally fond of anything that'd keep Klaus' attention away from her fate. For now, he wasn't thinking of how he was going to have her killed, and that was for the vampire's pleasure. Timeout, please. The suffering would come soon enough.

“Say that again?”

Klaus was massaging his shoulder as he could, and that looked like it hurt like hell. Oh, and, for the record, doubt was all over his face. Katherine was more interested in knowing him to be in pain.

Maddox examined Alaric Saltzman's body from head to toe with a disgusted look on his face.

“When witches or warlocks touch a vampire, they feel Death. For a werewolf, it's Bestiality. Another witch, Connexion. Untriggered werewolf, a fainter bestiality. This man... I've never felt such a thing. He's alive, but covered by Death.”

“Which means?”

Hey, fool. The warlock said he had never felt anything like that. That meant he didn't know, dumbass. Gosh, it felt good insulting Klaus, even if it was only in her head.

Maddox tried to explain nonetheless, but he really wasn't eager to talk about it.

“When I come into physical contact with a vampire, I'm submerged by a freezing wave of Death. With this body... It's Terror. As if just by standing next to it, Death will come for me. I only noticed once I first touched his skin, when I brought him here, but... residual, I guess. At the time, it made me want to throw up out of fear. I can't tell you more, I just don't know what's up with this guy.”

Klaus frowned. It wasn't exactly a problem, and he could ignore the pain. But it was strange...

As if he had already heard those words a long time ago.

“Well. It's not important. Bring me the trunk, will you?”

The doppelganger, still sitting on the shitty chair he had ordered her to sit on, saw the warlock relax. Maybe he really didn't like talking about this sensation that he had had.

Maddox went to the front door of the loft, and pulled an old trunk to the center of the room.

Katherine saw Klaus bend over it, searching for something.

The body scrounger looked for a couple of wooden rings that had been soaked with vervain a long time before. Just what he needed for the cute and obnoxious doppelganger.

There were all sorts of enchanted and special torture jewelry in this trunk, cursed necklaces, restraining wristbands, daylight rings, even concealing earrings if the Original remembered well.

When he spotted the two rings, Klaus had a crooked smile, and reached for them. His hand, or, more accurately, Alaric's, came into contact with a purple ring, most likely made with amethyst.

Klaus withdraw his hand as soon as the pain, very similar to that of an electric discharge, let him do so. The human heart he was borrowing went crazy for something like three seconds, speeding up, slowing down, as if it was trying to stop its own beating one way or another.

Katherine repressed a smile. Things were finally becoming interesting.

“Maddox.”

The warlock looked at him, intrigued.

“Can I do something for you?”

“Grab this ring for me. I'd like to confirm something.”

Maddox frowned, but obeyed. It was a silver ring with a square shaped amethyst embedded. The gemstone had been engraved with a eight-pointed star. He handed it to Klaus, but the original vampire wasn't going to try to touch it again. Once was enough, thank you very much.

Instead, he pondered for about one minute.

That dull pain in the teacher's shoulder, could it have been...?

“I might have an idea of who this Alaric is...”

And Klaus went to the bathroom.

Katherine snorted. In silence, of course. She didn't want to remind her sworn enemy she was right here, at his mercy, waiting for her punishment.

It wasn't fair. Building up the suspense like that, and leaving her to her ignorance. Now she was curious, and she wasn't going to know the bottom of it? Seriously?

Klaus got rid of the shirt the history teacher had been wearing when he had borrowed his body, and tried to see the back of his shoulder in the mirror of the bathroom.

There it was.

“You've got to be kidding me... Maddox, my phone. Now.”

The bloody star-shaped scar. No wonder he was in pain. The rather simple magic seal, specially conceived for the members of the Falkenbach Family, and therefore usable only by those who had their blood, even if they weren't witches, was reacting to the use of magic on his vessel's body.

Violently, as always.

The doppelganger watched the warlock search for the phone with curiosity. Maybe she'd be able to hear what Klaus was going to say, if the Original wasn't going to let her see. Such a pity. Alaric Saltzman was good looking, and Katherine'd have enjoyed the view.

Back in the bathroom, Klaus grabbed the cellphone with what seemed to be anger, and a bit of incomprehension at the same time, but not exactly concern. Not for now, at least.

The phone rang for an awful lot of time, and just before it switched to the voice mailbox, a sleepy person picked up the phone.

“ _Who the fuck is... Klaus. Happy to hear your voice. Even if it's not yours. You know it's two in the morning here, don't you? Why don't you try calling back in... I don't know, sixteen years, maybe?”_

“Yes, I haven't called in years, I know. But I hope you still do what I ordered you to.”

“ _You mean, taking care of the psycho you locked up in the Sixties? Sure, that's even my raison d'être.”_

“If you're trying to tell me you fucked up, Barnett, you know what is awaiting you.”

“ _Calm down, he's okay. Or, a bit desiccated, but you knew that already, didn't you? After all, you're the one who said no blood for the psycho. What do you want from me?”_

“Well, it's time to wake up the sleeping beauty.”

The voice stayed silent a long time. Klaus could almost hear the gears of his brain fonctionning at top speed. When he finally talked, fear could be discerned through a faint trembling of his tone.

“ _You want me to wake him up?! There's no way I'm letting this guy loose ever again. Last time, you lost seven vampires and three warlocks to overcome him, and I'm not even taking into account the killing spree that had preceded. Even if he surely has let go of his madness by now, I'm not sure he'll be thrilled to hear about you. I don't have a death wish, thank you very much!”_

Klaus tried to refrain from making torture promises, but he was very close to.

“Only one glass of blood, Barnett. He won't be strong enough to behead you with only one glass after all this time. And if you don't do it, he won't kill you, but I will for sure. So do it. Now.”

Oops. He had threatened Barnett. Well. It had been bound to happen, and it would happen again, so no need to worry. The vampire had always been a pain in the ass as soon as no one was there to monitor him directly. Sometimes Klaus had to remind him who he was.

The Original hung up the phone and went back to the main room to take care of Katherine.

He had a lot of things to ask about what exactly the other doppelganger had planned with her two-almost-boyfriends, about the teacher he was a little more than impersonating, and various other things, such as which kind of torture she liked most.

“And... you listened to this conversation, didn't you?”

It was so obvious he should have thought about it. But it didn't really matter, so he wouldn't be angry about that. He already had a lot of things to be angry about.

“I did. And this you-that-is-not-you has nice chest hair, by the way.”

The doppelganger really couldn't refrain from being sarcastic, could she? As if anyone cared about the local history teacher's chest hair. But she just liked to be unpleasant.

“And he has a disgusting scar on his back, if you want to know, but that's none of your concern.”

He was asking about the relationship between his host and the Gilbert Family, when his cellphone rang. It was about time.

“Barnett?”

The voice who answered him was certainly not the vampire's. It was a vampire's, all right, but it wasn't Barnett's. A hoarse voice, coming out of a throat that hadn't been hydrated for decades, the voice of a vampire that had been alternately something of a friend, something of a prisoner.

“ _Try again, dear.”_

The vampire coughed, yearning for more blood.

“ _And don't worry about your slave, he's alive. Or... maybe not, I'm not sure. But you don't worry about people, so I guess it's alright... I needed to quench the thirst, you know... Right now, I'd take anything, even animal blood if I have to.”_

Klaus clenched his teeth. Maybe he shouldn't have let him drink a drop of blood, after all. The vampire couldn't kill him, but he could make his life hell if he wanted to. He obviously wanted to.

“ _So, Klaus, what do you want from me?”_

“You told me your entire family had been wiped out during the Second World War. So why the hell the body I'm currently borrowing has your scar on it?”

 


	23. The point of no return

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe I really wrote that...  
> Anyway, going from Klaus' good mood to Damon's misfortune in love was weird.

“ _I do not care how many days, weeks or months it'll take, but Klaus, I can assure you I'll find you. And I'll make you suffer for those years I spent without a drop of blood. Not only for the last forty-two years, but for the sixteen years from the time before, the seventy-three years before that, and I can go on and on. I have four centuries worth of resentment, out of seven centuries of existence, thanks to you. Maybe I can't kill you, but getting rid of me won't be easy either. Now that it's said, goodbye, dear. Enjoy your time, I'll figure out how the modern world work soon enough.”_

Klaus woke up feeling uneasy.

The changes in the world had been big enough to buy him some time, but the vampire would find his track soon enough. Everything was going way too fast in the modern world.

It had always been the same story.

He would wake up, one way or another, almost make Klaus regret to have let him free, then calm down, go back to his friendlier personality, enjoy years of perfect friendship, think about his dead wife, go crazy once again, and the Original would put him to rest in a cell once again.

Klaus wasn't willing to kill the vampire. He was one of his rare friends. And well, it was more or less his fault if the vampire always ended up going ballistic. More like, one of his brothers' fault, but Klaus was the one who had daggered the culprit. So it was his fault.

Well, he had nothing to worry about. For now, at least. The full moon would come way before the vampire would even set foot in America. Once he'd had taken care of the formalities, three sacrifices and an annoying ritual, the Original would simply leave and the vampire would have to search for a long time before finding him. With a bit of luck, he'd have calmed down by then.

Anyway.

It was time for him to go teaching some students, meeting his new doppelganger, fooling people in making them believe he was who he seemed to be, that is, a high school history teacher.

...And he had almost forgot the obvious.

Pop quiz for Katherine, then her orders for the days. Simple stuff, such as being lovely, quiet, and stab herself in the leg repeatedly, so she'd had some fun while he'd be out. He'd have asked her to clean the loft too, but he didn't want to be too severe with her. See, he cared about people.

That's when he found the crossbows and everything else.

“Maintaining family traditions, as I can see. But given the supernatural population of Mystic Falls, this Falkenbach, since the family obviously hasn't died out, is not out killing humans, I guess.”

That was a strange thing to say. Eitherway, the Falkenbach had always been killers, even though they were human. But, still, Klaus could feel the difference between this human and others he had possessed.

The whole hijacking thing had this flaw, that the borrower was bound to feel the strongest natural feelings of their host. Warmth, when the body heard the voice of a loved one. Disgust, for something that was hated from the bottom of the heart of the vessel. Panic, if something very dangerous came after them. Terror, among other things, when the host made them do things such as killing or torturing. Or, sometimes, excitement.

Guilt, at least. Some people loathed guilt, and anything that could make them feeling guilty. Others loved it so much, they'd do anything to feel it again. Those were mostly psychopaths or masochists.

Klaus didn't feel anything other than his own satisfaction watching Katherine tear open her leg again and again. Being a Falkenbach was surely a strange thing, if only being in a Falkenbach's body was this odd.

He should really leave. He had a class to teach in... well, if he didn't hurry, he was going to be late.

If he wasn't exactly in character, nobody seemed to notice.

Even he felt kind of sad for the teacher.

It wasn't nice that no one had understood there was something off with him.

Klaus wouldn't complain, though. It served his plans, so, all the better.

And, from what he had understood, the man had had difficulties keeping up with his life lately. Maybe his friends were only happy to see he was doing better.

As he entered the classroom, mumbling about the Sixties, Klaus looked around. That was supposedly Elena Gilbert's class.

A voice corrected him about the Watergate happening during the Seventies by calling him “Ric”, and the Original froze for a second.

This time too, it was exactly the same voice. Not the same intonation, not at all, but the same voice.

Doppelganger spotted.

And Bennett witch spotted.

But no Salvatore in sight. Such a shame. It wasn't really important, but he'd have liked to see the younger brother in a high school classroom. Would have been ironic.

The Ripper of Monterey in a classroom.

Well, Elena Gilbert was obviously not Katherine, so the doppelganger thing was certainly true. As a matter of fact, she wasn't stabbing her own leg over and over again, and she wasn't locked in Alaric Saltzman's appartement, so she couldn't be Katherine.

Klaus almost didn't believe it.

He had found other doppelgangers during the millenium he had spent on this earth, but for some of them he had come too late, and the young girls with Katerina Petrova's face had become old and died by the time the rumor had catched up to him, and for others they had died trying to escape.

But Elena wasn't going to die anytime soon, he'd make sure of that.

Not before he'd have lifted the curse.

And there it was. Those bloody residual emotions.

Apparently, the history teacher cared about the young girl. A lot. As if she was his daughter. Such a shame he'd have to lose her once the ritual would be over.

Some people really had no luck in life.

Compelling one of his host's student to deliver a message to Elena was amusing, even though Klaus hadn't exactly liked to hear Dana mocking his first name. Klaus was a perfectly fine name. Why did the new generation had problems with ancient names? Klaus wasn't lame at all.

At least he wasn't the only one to be mocked. Alaric Saltzman too had troubles with his name. And Klaus was utterly surprised when his fist slammed violently against the wall, startling two idiots that were whispering about him. That was one hell of a ghost emotion for sure.

During the afternoon, Alaric received a message from the older Salvatore about a meeting anti-Klaus. That was hilarious.

Passing a threshold without being invited in was definitely one of the pleasure of the day.

Well, making fun of himself was certainly great too.

Here it was.

That was the reason why he kept on borrowing other persons' bodies once or twice a century, even though he felt so vulnerable when he wasn't in his own, virtually indestructible, original vampire's body. Being someone else, for a day, a week.

Damon watched Alaric leave the boarding house, thinking that something was wrong.

But maybehe was overthinking it. The hunter was a little too cheerful for someone who had just lost his wife, but it wasn't the first time. Nor the second, to tell the truth. Their encounter, months before, had been one more funeral for the woman that had hold his heart for some many years.

Isobel had been dead since a long time for Ric. Her suicide might have been nothing more than a relief for his best friend. A little sadness, maybe, but he had to stand strong, now more than ever.

After all, they were awaiting the visit of the biggest bad guy ever, weren't they?

No time for feelings.

Damon went back to his room. He had to change for the decade dance. He cared for Elena, after all. Not loving her romantically speaking didn't mean she was unimportant to him. Elena was his brother's girlfriend, and even something of a little sister, now. Damon certainly didn't want her to be killed because of some silly curse.

Wait, did Isobel's death made Ric single?

Or, more single than before?

No.

The vampire knew it couldn't be.

No matter what Jenna and Alaric were going through, the hunter loved Elena's aunt. Why would he ever love the psychotic vampire next door? No way, no way, no way.

Half naked, because he was changing clothes, and not for any other reason, with his shirt open and his shoes removed, Damon couldn't help thinking about that man he loved and he would never have.

Alaric Saltzman.

He had to be crazy to fell in love with this man.

He had to be crazy to be friend with this man, too.

But he was, and he couldn't help it.

As if his mind wasn't enough to make him acknowledge that, a part of his anatomy began to harden to remind him he had needs too.

The vampire winced. He really didn't have time for that right now.

But he hadn't had sex in days. Last time he had taken such a long break from it was at the beginning of the century. The twentieth century. Almost forgot how it felt, to be this needy.

Andie wasn't enough, now. They were still friends. But he simply couldn't do it.

Ashamed of himself, not because he was horny, but because once again he was losing himself over someone he would never have, Damon closed the door to his room and sank into his bed.

The vampire waited a moment.

Still as hard as before.

This time, he wouldn't get to do as if nothing had happened, as when he was waiting for Alaric the day before, in the corridor of the teacher's building.

His hand went to his pants, that he undid hesitatingly. Fear. Guilt. Despair.

He whispered, almost crying.

“I'm sorry, Ric. So sorry.”

Damon didn't want to use Alaric to get off, but he needed to, this time. Things would never be the same after that, he knew it. But who was he kidding? Things were already way past the point of no return.

Damon closed his eyes.

Now, it was as if the hunter was right beside him. The vampire still remembered the night when he had felt Ric's breath along his neck. A chill tormented his spin.

A hand touched his cock, and even if he knew it was his, Damon chose to think it wasn't. If only Ric could have been the one to stroke him, the world would have been perfect.

But the world wasn't perfect, he knew it, and that wasn't Alaric's hand.

Imagine. He had to make it true, or he wouldn't ever be alright, not even for one single second.

The pain was to much.

In his heart, as well as on his body.

The vampire clenched his teeth. That wasn't what he needed. He needed so much more, but he just couldn't understand what, and that was driving him crazy.

Alaric.

Right beside him, naked, on this very bed. Please.

Smiling to him, with this smile, that could revive a dying star, the star splinters that were all that remained of Damon's broken heart. A spark, in the darkness of what was left of his capacity to love. The remaining light of decades of depravity.

Of course.

Ric was a man. What Damon needed from him wasn't what he needed from a woman.

While he stroked his prick with one hand, the other went searching for his ass. He had never done that before, but thinking about the hunter, it could only be right. If only those fingers weren't his, but Alaric's. There, with him, on an absurdly large bed.

Damon moaned in a hushed voice. Imagining it were Ric's hands that were making him feel so good, working him open and releasing his cock from the pain of a hard on that wouldn't go away any other way. The vampire gave himself up to an unbearable pleasure, just for one moment.

Then it was gone. The Alaric Saltzman from his dream disappeared, and Damon was alone in his room, with cum on his hand and shame written all over his face, as tears rolled down on the sheets.

He couldn't go on like that. He had to do something. Even if it would destroy everything.

 


	24. Too much

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will shamelessly confess that I wrote this chapter and the three that preceded while listening to the 10 hours version of "Diggy Diggy Hole" by simon Lane on Youtube. Maybe I should try to listen to smething sad if I want to write funny things?

Klaus stepped into the party with little trust about the music. The Sixties had had their own kind of music, and as he had said before, it wasn't exactly his favorite time. At least, he could count on the Beatles and one or two other rock bands that hadn't completely sucked to make it kind of enjoyable.

And there still was his other source of amusement of the day, which included killing a witch, so it could have been worse.

Everything was going smoothly when the older Salvatore, Damon if he wasn't mistaken, came to him, and said he wasn't impressed with the little compulsion he had used so far. Something about it not being much for a frightening Original who should be trying to eat the doppelganger alive. Klaus might have said that the whole point of a sacrifice was that the person was alive until the moment she wasn't anymore. But it might have seemed strange coming from Alaric Saltzman, and frankly, if he couldn't simply ignore the young vampire's comment...

Well.

It took him a little time to notice that the older Salvatore wasn't exactly calm, as he couldn't hear heartbearts in this body. Maybe the sassy vampire was all talk and no action, finally. Because for now, Klaus had only heard words, nothing but words.

The fact that Ric wasn't saying much was getting on Damon's nerves, and not in the safe way.

The safe way would have been him getting angry or something like that. It wasn't what was usually considered Damon's safe way, but there, it really was.

Because the bad way, the one he was on at the time, was one that made him nervous.

Damon had come to a decision. He couldn't do as if everything was alright anymore.

For some time he had thought that he could overcome this, that he was better off doing as if Ric was only a friend to him, but he couldn't anymore. Even if their friendship drifted away after that, it was the only thing he could do.

The vampire took a deep breath.

“Alaric, we need to talk.”

Rather, he needed to let things out, a perfectly fast monologue, and, maybe, a little more than that, and then running away before the man he loved could react.

Yes, he had decided at first he would face the consequences of his action, but really, between what suited him and reality, there was a world of difference.

He'd try to stay and listen to what the hunter would answer. He would try. Damon wasn't sure he could, but he would try.

“Talk, then.”

“In private.”

Klaus raised an eyebrow, wondering what it could be about. Curious, he followed the vampire.

Damon lead him in an empty classroom. The music from the party could scarcely be heard from there. The vampire closed the door, and sat on a desk, head between hands, for almost a minute.

Just when Klaus was about to ask what he wanted to tell him, the vampire blurred in front of him.

“What are you...?”

Klaus had no time to finish that sentence.

Talking about the unexpected, that was one hell of an unexpected thing.

Shit.

Damon was doing it in the wrong order once again.

He had decided he'd talk to Ric first. First. Not last. Not even second.

What he was doing right now was definitely the expression of complete insanity.

And yet there he was, his lips barely laid on Alaric's.

It wasn't much of a kiss. Only a slight contact. But it was so fulfilling, Damon wouldn't have known what to do if it had been more than that. He might have exploded, figuratively speaking.

And to think it was hardly a touch. Ric wasn't even responding to his attempt. If he had, what would have become of Damon? Only a corporeal thing, no feelings, nothing more than physical contact. He knew it, and yet the vampire was so hot inside he had this feeling someone was eagerly shoving hot coals in his stomach.

Then came the realization.

Alaric wasn't responding. At all.

Damon had thought it could go that way. In fact, he had been convinced it would go this way since hour one, when he had first thought about it, days ago. It had to go this way.

Not only because Ric didn't love him back, but for the sole reason that your best friend kissing you out of the blue, was enough to keep you speechless for half an hour.

Damon stepped back.

Apparently, he had succeeded in that at least.

The teacher was utterly speechless.

And the vampire wasn't able to look at him.

Instead, words poured out of his mouth like a toxic substance burning his throat.

“I love you.”

The shortest sentence. The worst one first.

“I love you so much I'm losing my mind when you're around. I wasn't planning to tell you, but my heart is only this big. You, you're too much for it. It won't fit, if I don't let my nonsensical love for you out a little. My heart won't accept more pressure. You can break it if you want. You can welcome it if you want. Anything you want to do with my heart, I will let you do it. What comes next is up to you, Ric, but you can't ask me to erase this moment from our reality.”

Doing as if nothing happened would never work. It wasn't only about Damon. It was also about Alaric. Neither of them could ignore what had happened.

“I don't want you to choose right now, but I need you to know that I love you. You told me to fall in love with someone completely different from Katherine or Elena. You surely weren't expecting it to be you. I don't actually believe you would choose me over Jenna, but I can't stay silent anymore. I guess I'm really a lost cause, am I not?”

There it was. He had said it.

Damon raised his head to finally look into the hunter's eyes. He already knew he could as well rip his own heart outside of his chest. The answer was obvious. But he had to look Alaric in the eyes.

What he saw wasn't what he had expected.

What he saw wasn't Alaric.

Shock? Checked. Disgust? Checked. Pity? Checked.

Pity.

Pity wasn't Alaric. Pity wasn't a feeling any considerate person would have displayed after such a confession. Alaric was a considerate person. Pity wasn't Alaric.

For a split second, the vampire couldn't understand.

Then he understood.

The how wasn't the matter. Facts were facts. This was Alaric's body, but it wasn't Alaric. And if...

The vampire's eyes widened. Too much. It was too much. This time, he wouldn't be able overcome this. Damon ran away. As planned. But not for the reasons he had expected.

Klaus stayed there, without moving, for quite a long time. That was weird. Being kissed by a man. While in another man's body. Bloody hell.

It really wasn't the time to do the shocked face. He had a witch to kill, before the older Salvatore went and told everybody Alaric Saltzman wasn't himself anymore.

As for Damon, he was throwing up in the school bathroom when it occurred to him that he might as well warn Stefan that the evil Original was hijacking the body of a man he had justkissed and confessed to. Of course, he wasn't going to tell his brother the last part. Only stating Klaus' presence in the teacher's body would do for now. And, even, forever.

The vampire throwed up once more thinking about how he had suffered for nothing, how he suffered even more now, how he was never going to try that again.

As he had told Ric, no, Klaus, his heart couldn't bear more than what it had already gone through.

When he spotted Elena and his brother, dancing happily, he thought he would vomit again. Why wasn't he allowed to be happy, when they were? Sure, they had a constant threat upon their pretty faces, but them, at least, had someone they loved and who loved them back.

Damon waited a second, trying to look better than he felt, and cleared a path between the dancing teenagers.

The happy couple's mood darkened when they understood something wasn't right.

Damon tried to play it cool, damonish as always, but his tone still betrayed him.

“Houston, we have a problem.”

Stefan frowned, wondering what was wrong with his brother. Because Damon looked like he was about to fall apart. And that was habitually a bad, very bad omen.

“I know, and you know I do. His name is Klaus, for the record.”

“No, his name should be Alaric and yet is not.”

Saying the hunter's name after what had just happened almost made him cry. But Damon Salvatore wasn't a crying guy. He was a killing-anybody-anytime guy. That wasn't the best part of his personnality, but it was better than turning off the switch. Tried once, wasn't going to do that ever again if he could help it. Too much of a mess to clean up afterwards.

Damon snorted. He was doing it, wasn't he? Playing unaffected.

Elena waved a hand to Bonnie, who followed them when they left the gymnasium-turned-Sixties-party-dancefloor. As they were searching for the body scrounger, they rescued Jeremy from a bunch of compelled teenagers / morons-anyway, and the vampires were separated from the witch and the doppelganger.

Damon almost killed the kids. Stefan stopped him. The thought of Ric's anger if he did helped the older Salvatore to snap out of it.

Then came the whole stuff with Bonnie battling Klaus in Alaric's body, playing dead, and Klaus disappearing once again. With Alaric's body.

Once back to the boarding house, Damon went to his room with his heart hurting like hell.

Elena wasn't happy at all. Whatever. He had done what had to be done.

It wasn't the issue.

The issue was rather simple.

Damon had decided to confess with difficulty. He had felt as if his heart was bleeding in his chest as he had been confessing his feelings to the very man from who he wanted to hide them forever. And then, he had understood all the pain had been for nothing, because it wasn't even Alaric who had listened to him.

As if it wasn't enough, Alaric had been shattered by Bonnie's blasts.

Damon had seen and heard bones breacking, then being put back into place thanks to magic, he had felt the chills on his back each time Ric's body had been tossed against a wall, he had refrained himself from stepping in and stopping all this madness.

How could he only stand by and watch as the hunter was being torn apart by the young witch?

And yet he had.

Alaric. Used as a puppet, broken over and over again, banished from his own body.

How could they?

The teacher wasn't an object. He wasn't some plaything they could throw away when he wasn't useful anymore. He was one of the rare persons in the world that made him feel safe. He was so human, and yet so abnormal, with his freaking Falkenbach Curse, that he had accepted even Damon as a friend, when he had understood that the vampire was nothing else than lost.

Lost. Both of them were.

Misfits. Supernatural misfits in a world that didn't believe in the supernatural. At least, not the majority of the world. Human and Undead. Alaric was cursed, Damon was damaged. Ric was inhumane, the vampire was rejected.

Alaric Saltzman and Damon Salvatore.

Was Alaric still somewhere in his body? Or had Klaus destroyed everything when he had jumped in the man's body? With magic, you never know.

Maybe Damon could get him back. And, this time, he'd stick with the friendship thing. As he had planned to do to begin with. It was definitely the wisest thing to do. No matter what, the hunter wouldn't love him back. So, the vampire should try and appreciate what he had. If he still had it.

Damon looked at the bloody coat he had picked up after Klaus disappearance.

The vampire sighed, and went to bed. The blood was Alaric's, even if the mind hadn't been.

He fell asleep, holding onto the coat. Holding onto the only thing he had left from Ric.

 


	25. Hateful, hateful smile

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At first I was writting this instead of studying. Now I'm doing it instead of sleeping.  
> I really, really need to fix that.  
> What I mean is, I might not update as much as before starting from today, up till wednesday at least. Sorry. But I too need to sleep.

Pain.

Uncommensurable pain.

Klaus was categorical. No human beings should be allowed to suffer this much.

For a vampire, it wasn't the same. Pain could be terrible, even more with the things they had special weaknesses to. When it came to stakes, vervain or sunlight, for example. But they healed quickly. Things such as pain lasting over time weren't their reality.

But that, that wasn't something any human should ever suffer.

He had played around for too long in Alaric Saltzman's body, he had let it be broken into pieces over and over, because Maddox with backing him up and had been putting it all together again and again. But he had forgotten about the Falkenbach Seal. And now, he was being repentent about that.

He had forgotten, because once he had borrowed the body of the teacher, the pain had been less and less present. After all, the seal only reacted to magic. Once Klaus was here, he didn't need any magic to stay here.

Fool.

The seal of the first kill, that was what he had been told. Carved into the flesh of each of the children of the Falkenbachs in order to prevent them from losing all of their humanity. Restraining the terrible curse from pervading other parts of their brain, as it had, since their birth, been cancelling their hability to feel guilt over killing and torture.

Cancelling wasn't the word. Destroying was more like it.

No humanity. At all.

It was even worse than the vampire switch.

Long ago, when his friend had snapped for the second time, Klaus had asked for the help of some witches to regain what the curse had taken away from him. And then, they had understood.

Nothing could be done. There was nothing to turn on, nothing to reveal, nothing to uncover.

The Falkenbachs really had no humanity concerning Death.

And when a Falkenbach killed for the first time, the other parts of his humanity were switched off, one after another, destroyed, wiped out from their being, if the eight-pointed seal wasn't engraved on the back of their left shoulder, not far from the heart. The more a child from this cursed family waited to be sealed, the more inhumane he became.

Obviously, to contain such a powerful curse, a powerful seal was needed.

A seal that didn't react very well to other spells. Interferences usually took their toll on the human body. A Falkenbach wasn't someone you could expose to magic carelessly. After all, you never knew if the seal would break or not, if confronted with too much magic. As well as no one knew how such an event, unheard of for now, might end up. Death, maybe. Or complete inhumanity.

Well, it wasn't that Klaus was concerned about what would become of the body he was hijacking. But, if possible, he'd prefer not to have a completely inhumane Falkenbach, even if a human being, on the loose. He had had his fair share of Falkenbach related inconveniences. Wasn't eager to try again. Was even less pleased by the perspective now that he knew his psycho friend was also after him. Really, he shouldn't have told Barnett to wake him up.

Klaud sighed and asked for another drink. There was no more alcohol at the loft, and this much pain asked to be drown into whiskey as soon as possible. Next time, he'd make sure to order Katherine not to touch the bottles. One way or another, the annoying doppelganger had emptied the minibar while stabbing herself. He had to give her credit for that.

The Mystic Grill's bartenders were busy this night. Not very surprising, considering that teenagers were so numerous with the school party that no one cared, only for this night, whether they were past the legal drinking age or not.

Someone sat down on the bar stool next to him.

“Ric, you're bleeding.”

Damn. Someone who knew the teacher, but didn't know he wasn't exactly him.

As if he hadn't enough to ruminate about.

Wait, what?

He was bleeding? How so? How could he have not noticed? Was it a side effect of the spell Maddox had used to keep this body from shattering? How the bloody hell hadn't he be able to feel the pain...?

The pain.

Of course.

The pain was just this much, that he couldn't feel anything else.

Klaus looked at the one who had talked to him.

The Original almost choked.

She gave him a concerned look and then patted him on the shoulder.

“You should really do something about that. There's blood on your shirt, you know.”

Klaus glanced at Galswinthe sideways.

“I already changed clothes. I didn't think there would be... leftovers.”

For a moment he considered being baffled by the fact that Galswinthe was alive. Really. He had thought for so long she was dead that it was completely freaking him out that she wasn't.

Kol.

It was all Kol's fault.

Kol must have thought it'd be fun to tell everyone she was dead.

But Klaus couldn't afford to look astonished. If Alaric Saltzman knew her, he couldn't act as if he didn't. If Alaric Saltzman knew her, the Original had to be careful. About what she had told him. About what he was supposed to know.

“It's your scar that is bleeding, Alaric. You have this round, bloody print on your shirt, and it's growing bigger.”

She was right. If he was attentive enough, he could feel the blood driping from the seal, right before being absorbed by the fabric of the grey shirt he was wearing.

Klaus could feel it over the pain that was eating him alive. Muscles, flexed to the point that he had this disturbing impression they would crush his bones in no time. Veins, swollen enough for him to feel the bloodflow crashing against the walls. Blood, running so quickly it almost blasted his arteries. Skin, outstretched, on the verge of breaking.

Or at least it felt like it.

Being a Falkenbach sucked.

“The scar. Right. I'll ask someone to give it a look.”

And he prepared to leave.

But a hand, strong, yet delicate, grasped his arm. Gal wasn't done talking.

Or maybe she knew.

“Galswinthe. Let go.”

“So we know each other. Anyway, it's one of my children you're using as a vessel. I don't care if you knew about it or not. But I've spent centuries looking after my kids. You'd better get the hell out of this body. Now.”

Was she threatening him? She was. But she didn't know who he really was. If she had known, she wouldn't have. Or maybe she would have anyway. That was the thing with Gal. All about family. Always. Forever. Family was the only reason she was still here, alive, or undead, whatever, after what Kol had done to her. Looking after them. Her family. The daughter she and her husband had raised. Her children. Their children. Caring about even her hundred times diluted blood.

Klaus was kind of jealous. He and his siblings had taken an oath of always being here for each other, and there he was, alone. If Galswinthe could still love her family after seven centuries of generations, why couldn't they do the same, when they were brothers and sister?

“I thought you were dead, dear. Your husband thought so too. Kol said he had beheaded you to cause trouble. Apparently he didn't, but he certainly caused trouble by lying about it.”

Gal stiffened.

Hans. This body scrounger knew about Hans. Who was it already, amongst the Originals, that had this disturbing habit of body jumping into other people?

“Klaus.”

The original vampire with the face, in fact, the body of her umpteenth-times-great-grand-son, smiled. Hateful, hateful smile. Hateful body thief.

“Klaus indeed. Now you would let me go? I wouldn't want to kill your descendant in order to escape.”

Gal grew pale. Why the hell Klaus was in Alaric's body wasn't exactly her concern. For now, she was more worried about him slicing his throat with the knife he had placed against his neck.

She let go of him.

“Well, I'm not going to kill him just like that. After all, my presence in this body is possible only thanks to Maddox substituting most of his blood with mine. If he dies... We don't want another Falkenbach vampire, do we? The first one is already enough trouble on his own.”

Klaus looked her in the eyes. He wasn't going to blackmail her with her kid's life. He could do way better, or worse, eitherway. Something that she woudn't be able to undo, no matter what.

Compulsion. He could do compulsion even in a human body. Shitty Originals really were shitty.

“You won't help the Salvatores or any other person to fight back. You'll stay in your motel room or wherever you're staying as long as the full moon isn't passed.”

Gal felt her lips parting to repeat. She didn't want to say it. But she had no choice.

“I won't help anyone to fight back.”

As if she could do anything against Klaus. As if she could do anything about anything.

“I will stay in my motel room as long as the full moon isn't passed.”

“One last thing before you go.”

A mean smirk extended Klaus' lips as he watched her, listening to him without being able to say anything. Now he knew how to deal with his psycho friend once he'd arrive in Mystic Falls, searching for him and trying to make his life a living hell, as always.

“Your beloved is on his way to come here. You should try to reason him before he goes on a rampage in the city, shouldn't you? After all, Hans Falkenbach has deserved to be freed from my brother's lie, and, don't you want to see your husband once again?”

Gal nodded. Before leaving, she told him what she thought of his methods.

“You better not do anything to his body. You know how much I care about my family, and this kid is this generation's dearest to my heart.”

Maybe she wasn't as strong as an Original, but unlike him, she had friends. Friends that wouldn't let Klaus walk away if she died by his hand. Friends that could help her to get her revenge if she needed to. Maybe they wouldn't ever be able to kill him. But they could make him suffer.

Witches. Vampires. Even werewolves, and a bunch of other creatures, quite odd, quite rare, quite unknown. Friends are what you make when you're not actually trying to kill every single person that cross your path and doesn't curtsey low enough. But that, Klaus couldn't understand it.

She left. On her way to her motel room, of course. And Alaric wasn't the one who'd go and worry about her. You know, the person you are calling is temporarily unavailable, and all...

Alaric Saltzman.

Klaus sighed. A pretty interesting man indeed.

Not that he was interested. The original vampire had no interest in anything that wasn't related to breaking his own bloody curse. But many other people would have thought the Falkenbach Curse was interesting. Elijah had considered it interesting, long ago. A shame he had been daggered by this very body. Or maybe not. Elijah was being a bloody nuisance lately. To be dead for a while might help him being the good brother he had been once again.

Still.

As uninterested as he was, Klaus had to admit the Falkenbach had a curious family tree, curious family circumstances, and a curious family curse. No one knew where this curse came from, as a matter of fact. And, he had tamed without even being aware of it a dangerously uncaring vampire.

Things were strange enough as they were.

Klaus would better not try to figure out what the ghost feelings he had been dealing with all day long meant. He really, really, didn't want to feel the terrible anger that had appeared when he had killed the witch. And he certainly didn't want to think about the surprise and the warmth that had overwhelmed him when the older Salvatore had confessed his love for the history teacher.

Surprise, sure, but warmth too.

 


	26. So strange

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2x18 and 2x19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been a good girl, I didn't write in five days, I caught up some sleep, and what did I get in return? "YOU WILL NOT GO NEAR THE COMPUTER AFTER 9:30 IN THE EVENING ANYMORE!!!"  
> I hate you mom.  
> But you know what? I don't care. I'll just set the alarm clock sooner. Like, 3:30 in the morning.

The door opened, and Katherine sat down as if she had been the perfectly obedient vampire she was supposed to be.

Right. She had been. Up to some point. That is, she had obeyed Klaus. She had no choice about that. But after some time she had grown bored. There was no more alcohol in the apartment, and that sucked. So she had grabbed a pen and a piece of paper, and written every single insult she could think of. She couldn't go out? Very well. She'd redecorate.

It was Klaus.

The doppelganger wasn't sure whether or not it was a good thing. If it had been one of the Original's witches, her piece of art would have been thrown away before Klaus could see it. That would have been a shame. But she wasn't sure how he'd react.

Maybe, if she could piss him off enough, he'd put her out of her misery.

Make no mistake. Katherine wasn't one to wish to be killed. But that'd still be better than suffering for centuries and seeing the original vampire enjoy his revenge. On her.

Klaus frowned when he saw her work, but he wasn't exactly angry. In fact, he seemed to have other things on his mind. And to be in pain. Which was great.

“You really did that? Are you twelve years old or what?”

Katherine pouted. Damn. Another failed attempt, then.

“Klaus. You're back... And you look baffled.”

Yup. That was it. He seemed to be really, really uncomfortable. Surely something had happened. And not anything. You don't make a thousand years old vampire uncomfortable with a dirty joke. She knew. She had tried. Many times.

Klaus didn't even try to deny it. He sat on the couch, and sighed.

When he borrowed other people's body, he seemed to be somewhat more open to others. Or maybe he was faking it. It wouldn't have been a surprise if he did. I open up to you, you tell me all I want to know, that kind of thing. As if Katherine would be honest if he was.

“Your former boy toy kissed the history teacher.”

It took some time for Katherine to process the information.

Former boy toy. Damon, obviously. To kiss. Action. Including lips on lips. History teacher. Alaric Saltzman. Currently possessed by Klaus. Damon. Alaric. Klaus. Kiss. Men. Damon had kissed Alaric Saltzman. Damon had kissed Alaric Saltzman. Damon had kissed Alaric Saltzman.

Really?

Katherine coughed. It was too much information.

“My form... Damon did what?”

Klaus glared at her.

Yup. Damon had kissed the history teacher. For real. That was... unexpected.

And terribly, terribly interesting. Katherine couldn't resist the temptation. It was way too hilarious, even thinking about Klaus fighting the urge to punch, or even kill on the spot, the man that was kissing him while he was in another body than his own. But having unexpected relationship tumbling into you is the risk, when you invade other people's personal space. And body jumping was a serious personal space invasion. So the Original'd better not complain about that.

“So basically, Damon kissed you.”

Why? was an interesting question. Maybe the vampire had been stone drunk, but still, it didn't look like him. From what she knew, and Katherine had kept an eye on him as she had on Stefan during the last decades, though not for the same reasons, Damon Salvatore was exclusively straight. For him to kiss a man out of the blue was... unlooked-for.

Klaus gave her a death glare. That was serious.

“He confessed to him. And it was I who heard it. And who felt the kiss.”

Damon had conf...! Whatever. That was... That... She didn't even have words to name what it was.

Certainly, Katherine didn't love Damon. Still, she kind of liked him. He had been nice, and playing with him had been interesting. Of course, she'd wouldn't sacrifice herself for him if she had to, but it was this way with everyone. She wasn't even sure if she'd have sacrificed her life for Stefan. And she loved him. That said it all.

“And the worst in all that, is that there was this much warmth in this man's chest after the confession. As much warmth as when something brings the conversation round the case of his girlfriend, Jenna. And that's disturbing.”

Klaus went to the bathroom, leaving the doppelganger alone in the room. Good. She always felt better when he wasn't around. After all, he was the original asshole who wanted her tortured for centuries, maybe millennia. Even her boredom being relieved couldn't match the thought of a slow, agonizing death.

Then she picked up the strange scent. It was blood. But she hadn't sensed it before. As if it wasn't exactly blood. Which was strange. Even vampire blood smelled almost the same as human blood, and that was why vampires weren't usually able to tell their own kind before seeing more obvious hints. Such as, healing wounds, or vampire-mode face. Obvious hints.

Klaus walked in the main room again. He wasn't wearing any shirt, and handed her a towel.

“Help me with this.”

Then he sat down, showing her the teacher's back, and she saw.

Katherine saw the scar, bleeding heavily, as if the skin had cracked. Maybe it had.

“What the hell is that?!”

“That, dear, is the Falkenbach Seal. You heard me say it already, this man is cursed to the bone. And the seal doesn't like magic very much. So could you, please, and when I say please I oviously mean that as an order, clean the wound, Katerina? I just ruined a shirt because of this, and I don't intend to walk aroung half naked.”

The doppelganger eyed the history teacher assets, and thought it wouldn't do anyone any harm. But who was she to talk back to the great Niklaus?

So she complied, and started to clean the wound.

The smell was so strange, enticing as any human's blood, of course, but a bit freaking her out, that she had to ask. Maybe Klaus wouldn't answer. Maybe he didn't know either. But she had to ask.

“What is wrong with this blood? It gives me the chills.”

She heard the body scrounger sneer, but he answered. He apparently was a lot more disturbed by Damon's unexpected kiss than he wanted her to know. Because when Klaus was almost nice like he was at the moment, either he wanted something, or he was deeply troubled by something.

Well, Katherine could understand how disturbing it was to be suddenly kissed by someone you'd never think would do that. Like, Damon kissing the history teacher.

Damn. That was still as hilarious as before.

“Feels like it's kind of poisonous, doesn't it? It is not. But it's filled with magic, as it comes from the scar and not any other wound. The seal has more than a thousand years of history. As the Falkenbach Curse. This blood is corrupted by a several centuries old curse, habitually filtered by the eight-pointed seal. Which is a bit saturated right now.”

Well. It was one hell of a curse, then.

When most of the blood had been removed, Klaus asked her to put a bandage on the scar, so that he wouldn't soak the sheets, and he went to bed.

Time to sleep, even more for an Original borrowing a human body. Sleep was necessary for a vampire. Many reasons. First one being, your mind needs a timeout once in a while, or you simply go crazy. Also, sleeping made vampires feel better, as for anybody else.

And Klaus hadn't allowed Katherine to sleep.

Bastard.

She waited for him to wake up, restraining herself from grabbing a pen and drawing him a mustache. He'd certainly wake up, and be mad at her. She didn't want Klaus to be any angrier at her than he already was. Lately, she hadn't had to stab herself, cut her throat open or write an apology letter with her own blood, which was a pretty valuable progress. The doppelganger wasn't going to give him a reminder of how much he wanted her to suffer.

Klaus didn't even look at her in the morning, and that was a fucking great thing. He had shit to do, such as, threatening people, making evil plans, killing people... Not supposed to come back to the loft before the evening. Maybe a bit boring, but fucking great still.

Then Katherine had this suprise.

Someone knocked on the door, and, even though she couldn't open the door or answer, the outside world opened to her once more. The outside world looked a lot like Damon.

“So you're not dead. Shame.”

“Why, thank you. I'm happy to see you too, honey.”

The two vampire stared at each other for some time, then the woman who was with Damon came into the loft, while, threshold taken into account, the older Salvatore stayed in the corridor.

“I heard something interesting, yesterday evening.”

Damon stiffened.

“From Klaus. About you.”

“Couldn't he simply shut up?”

“Well, I think you traumatized him. And I'm curious. How the hell did you end up falling in love with a man, Damon? That's so unlike you, I'm bewildered.”

The younger vampire bit his lip not to say anything. Katherine didn't look bewildered, at all, and she was definitely enjoying this. He wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of seeing him as helpless as he actually was.

“That's not your concern, Katherine. And Alaric is a thousand time better than you were, so I think my taste is becoming better with time.”

She pretended to be outraged. This was so much fun.

“Oh my, Damon! What would your father say? His oldest son in love with a man!”

“I don't give a damn about what his opinion would be. I gave up pleasing him the day he killed me. Or, even before that, but this day was the day I didn't give a shit anymore for real. And fuck, it's not like I will ever get my love back.”

Katherine didn't tell him about the ghost emotions Klaus had experienced. Not because she was a selfish woman. She was selfish, sure. But she wasn't against being kind when it cost her nothing. She only wasn't even positive that the history teacher would survive the possession. It was better not to get Damon's hopes up.

The woman that had come with the vampire rejoined them.

“No one else in there, Damon. You want me to look for something in particular?”

“No, thank you, Andie.”

Damon gave the doppelganger a last look and smirked. For a change, something good. Katherine, locked in an apartment with her sworn ennemy. Great. He could still console himself with that.

And damn. He still cared. After all she had done. He refrained a sigh, and grinned instead.

“I've got a present for you.”

Vervain.

“But did you deserve it? After all, you gave Klaus all the informations he needed to impersonate Ric. And before you say anything, yes, I know he compelled you, but still. Maybe you could... say something about his plans?”

“Sorry, mouth locked.”

“Then, no vervain for you. Be happily compelled for the rest of your miserable life.”

Andie interrupted, while checking her phone. She was waiting for someone to call her back.

“I manage pretty well with that, actually.”

“Andie, I don't want to kill you, torture you or do you any harm, so it's not exactly the same.”

“I'm just saying, you know...”

Damon and her prepared to leave, and Katherine felt she had to find something, fast, or she wouldn't get that damn vervain.

Then she remembered the night Klaus had possessed Alaric Saltzman.

“Wait, Damon! I might have something interesting to give you, even if I can't say anything.”

Damon frowned, and saw her disappearing in the loft. When she came back, she had an amethist ring engraved with an eight-pointed star in the middle of the stone in her hand, that she gave to him.

“I have no idea what it is exactly, but your friend is cursed, and when Klaus, in his body, touched it, he looked like he felt as much pain as we do when we touch vervain. You might need it.”

 


	27. Awake, as I can see

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> set in 2x20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ric is back!!!!

It hurt.

Up till then, it had hurt a little.

And then it had hurt a lot more.

Alaric collapsed to the ground. His body fell clumsily on the floor.

But it wasn't that that hurt so much.

No. It was as if his whole body was being torn apart. Especially his left shoulder.

Left shoulder. Now he knew what was going on with the pain.

The teacher saw a girl. She looked a lot like Elena. Maybe it was her.

He closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, he was sitting on a chair, hand tied behind his back, and he was feeling much better. It seemed to him only a few seconds had passed, but he could guess it was more likely hours.

A man was sitting across the table, reading a book.

Alaric stayed silent, trying to guess what exactly had happened since he had last seen Isobel. He had no idea. He wasn't even sure how much time he had been out. All he knew was that he had had nightmares and dreams. What about, he couldn't say. Warmth, anger, surprise, disconfort, was all he had left from his slumber.

The man looked up. His body was that of a young man, and in a way his eyes too. But they were also very old. Bitter. And yet laughing.

“Awake, as I can see.”

And he smiled, a sick, grim, horrendous smile. And then he left.

What was that about?

As the hunter began to twist his hands to free himself, a young woman stepped out of his apartment's bathroom. Alaric squinted his eyes. He had one hell of a headache, and had to concentrate if he wanted to see who she was. If only he knew her. Which wasn't certain at all.

It was... Elena.

Or...

“Katherine?”

The doppelganger grinned a sad grin and sat on the chair next to him.

“Klaus wants me to compel you to go and say something to the Salvatore brothers. I hope you're able to walk?”

“That will do.”

“Well, then...”

The vampire took away the bracelet full of vervain he always had with him. She looked him in the eyes, and began speaking. She was doing this thing with her pupils, that gave him a sticking nausea. But his mind cleared, and he felt like he could not only walk, but that he could actually walk straight ahead too.

Katherine went behind the chair to free him, and was surprised to see he had already undone the rope. She frowned, wondering how the teacher could have done that when he wasn't even able to think normally. She looked at him. He was massaging his wrists, and looked like it was no big deal.

“How did you do that?”

Alaric had a little smile, tired, jaded smile. Freeing himself from this kind of ties wasn't much, even more when no one was expecting him to do so.

“You're not part of the family with the greatest assassins in the last centuries as family members without some instinct and natural skills for this kind of things.”

And he left, as if he had said something completely trivial.

The hunter searched for his car, not sure of where he had parked it. He couldn't find it, so he decided to go to the boarding house on foot. Maybe it was for the best. After all, if he could walk straight, the world was still more or less attacking him with all its might. That was usually called a headache, he knew that, but he was certain the world resented him personally. If it didn't, then why had he to endure all this supernatural farce?

Anyway, if he tried to drive to the Salvatore's, he might as well throw himself in a ditch already.

It took him some time, but if he felt like his head was going to blow up any minute, he was here.

Ric took a deep breath, and rang the doorbell.

The door opened, and he came face to face with Jenna.

His heart missed a beat. Or it would have if he wasn't so weary.

Sure, he was happy to see her. He was happy to know she was alright. But he also knew that her threatening him with a crossbow was a good enough hint that she knew. And, either he had done something really rude lately without being aware of it, enough for her to hate him for the rest of her life, or something had happened while he was unconscious. If nothing had happened, she wouldn't have asked to be sure he was himself.

Damon, Stefan, Elena, and even Elijah arrived in the hallway, and Alaric gulped. Something was definitely wrong. He had to find something to say, he had to prove he was himself, even if he didn't know why.

And why the hell was the Original alive in the first place? Elijah was supposed to be daggered in the basement, and...

No matter. He needed a proof. Now.

The story with Jeremy entering Jenna's room during their first night together came to his mind. Better than nothing. Of course, Jenna and Elena blushed. Ric didn't. He wasn't able to feel anything about saying it out loud right now. Somehow, his brain operated just fine, but his emotional center was bogged down. Too tired, certainly.

Things went their way.

Alaric delivered Klaus's message, and only then he understood the meaning of the words he had just let out. The sacrifice was this very night. And he was ashamed he wasn't even able to feel bad about it. And he was ashamed he wasn't even able to feel ashamed.

Everybody watched him fall upon the couch, as he held his head between his hands.

“I won't ask if you keep aspirin in this house, Damon, but sometimes I'd really like it if you could only be a normal guy, who gets hangover after drinking too much.”

Of course, there was no aspirin.

Ric listened to them talking about what Klaus did while he was borrowing his body, and the hunter almost achieved to care. Now, he was there, sitting on this sofa with his best friend and his girlfriend, and nobody died, even though Klaus thought Bonnie did. And, except Isobel. But she had it coming. All in all, it could have been worse.

Elena went away at some point, he wasn't exactly sure why. Stefan followed her.

Alaric, Damon, Jenna and Elijah were still there, in the living room, and the silence was heavy.

“I guess I still have to apologize for one or two things... First of all, I apologize for stabbing you with the dagger.”

Elijah raised an eyebrow. There was nothing behind this voice. It wasn't exactly a lie, but... Apologies weren't the same for this man than for other people. And the Original was sure he had already heard that tone somewhere...

“Apology accepted.”

The teacher nodded, thankful for that. Then he turned to face Damon, who looked at him with...

“I'm sorry for the troubles, Damon. I wasn't the one who did all this, of course, but I wasn't careful enough to prevent it.”

“Shut up, Ric. It's not like any of us ever thought the big bad original vampire could body jump into human beings. You've got nothing to worry about.”

Ric frowned. His vision was still unfocused, but his hearing was fine. There was something in the vampire's voice that wasn't right. Pained. Wounded, even.

He'll think about it later.

“Jenna... I still have one thing to tell you, if I want to be completely honest with you.”

Damon stiffened.

If Alaric was really going to say what the vampire thought he was going to say, the hunter was going to risk everything for his relationship. If Jenna...

The vampire bit his lower lip, only noticed by Elijah. He couldn't hope for Ric to be unhappy with Jenna. It'd have been selfish, and Damon was never selfish when it came to his best friend. Or at least he tried not to be. He wanted Alaric to be happy. If Damon couldn't get his own happy ending, at least he'd find some comfort if he knew the man he loved was living a good life.

The teacher took off his shirt, and tore off the bandage he had underneath.

“This scar is not only a scar...”

Elijah interrupted, finally able to remember what it was that was so familiar with the man's eyes. The inhumanity of the Falkenbach was the answer.

“Falkenbach. That explains a lot.”

“Falken-what?”

Because that didn't explain anything to Jenna, who had no idea what they were talking about.

The Original sat down, and said two words about it being a curse that every member of a particular family had inherited at birth. A cursed legacy he had seen only twice in his life, and he would always remember. It wasn't a curse to be considered as unimportant.

Damon winced when nobody was looking at him, which was almost all the time, since everyone's attention was busy with Alaric. Now they didn't even have this secret to keep. Now they all knew what he had spend days and weeks looking after, as a freaking stalker. And he and Alaric didn't have this bond between them anymore. Secrecy was dead, and with it had died the last hope he had about his love for Ric.

“Why is your scar stained with dried blood, exactly?”

It was better if he didn't think about it.

The hunter frowned, and tried to touch the damaged skin. His head started to pin, so Jenna did it for him, and effectively, the scar had been reopened lately.

Damon tensed up when she ran her fingers on Alaric's skin. This wasn't fair.

Hands clenched to the point he was drawing blood from his palms when the nails broke through.

In his jacket pocket, he felt something cold. He took it and looked at it for a while.

The ring Katherine had stolen from Klaus.

“Catch that, Ric.”

And he threw it to his best friend who caught it without much effort.

The instant the hunter's skin came into contact with the jewellery, he knew he had made a mistake.

A terrible eletrical discharge made his heart goes crazy for three or four seconds. He could feel it, skipping an heartbeat. Then racing against his chest.

And for the same amout of time, he felt nothing. Not even fear, due to his lack of emotions.

Ric let go of the ring as soon as he could, and then he was back to normal. Almost. If shrieking on the sofa while shaking like a leaf could be called normal. If the fact that his scar started bleeding again, even if the blood smelled like death, even for a vampire, was considered normal.

“What the hell was that?!”

Elijah bent down, and put his hand on the ring. He recognized it as soon as he saw it.

“The Falkenbach's weakness, if you can call it so. Enchanted jewelry, as always. The seal on your back and the seal on the amethyst are resonating, overriding without lasting effects the magic that is keeping you humane inside. In return, it inflicts great pain. But I've seen how this usually work out. A Falkenbach on the loose is terrible. Now, if you'll excuse me...”

The original left, and Damon went back to his room. He didn't want to witness once more his own despair.

There he found Elena waiting for him, with her crazy resurrection plan, and it pissed him off how everyone was willing to throw away their life for the ones they loved, when he wasn't able to get his own happiness. Anger took the best out of him, and he fed elena some of his blood. He wasn't going to let her, who he almost considered a little sister in some way, die on him because of an uncertain potion.

Stefan stopped him, but to late, and they fought.

Then Alaric came in, shortly followed by Jenna.

The hunter managed to get him to calm down and not do another stupid thing, such as stabbing his own brother.

Then Ric noticed. His bloodied coat could still be seen somewhere between the sheets of Damon's bed.


	28. Does he know?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2x20 and 2x21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jenna... If I could have saved her life, I'd have done it. But it simply doesn't fit. I believe in her and Alaric as much as I believe in Dalaric. I don't want to break her heart.  
> One day, I'll find a way to make it work. One day, I'll write something where she stays alive.  
> But for now, I have no idea about how I can do that.  
> Rest in peace, Jenna.

Alaric was observing Damon, but his mind was occupied by something else. That is, he was thinking about the vampire, alright, but he wasn't noticing his stare was intriguing the said vampire.

“Ric, may you stop staring at me like that? It's uncomfortable.”

The teacher blinked, obviously not aware he was staring.

“Sorry, man. I was thinking about... stuff.”

Such as, the fact that the vampire was keeping a bloodied coat in his bed. His bloodied coat. His coat, with his blood on it.

It was ridiculous.

The only explanation Ric could think of was ridiculous.

And yet it explained many things. Damon's demeanor had been slightly off, lately, but not so much, so the hunter hadn't noticed. Damon avoiding him. Damon opening his heart to him. The tears on his face when Alaric had died. Damon's sudden honesty. Damon forcing Elena to drink his blood in a fit of anger after Jenna had accepted the teacher as he was.

Still, it was ridiculous. Alaric wouldn't have thought he was so self-centered as to think his best friend could possibly be... be... to think his best friend could be in love with him.

Yet the thought wouldn't let him alone.

And that was disturbing him to the point that he felt guilty, even though he most likely was imagining things. Guilty, sad, even.

If Damon really loved him, which was pretty certainly a stupid idea, Alaric would never be able to respond to the vampire's feelings.

It wasn't about Damon being a vampire. It wasn't about Damon being the one he had come to Mystic Falls to kill in the first place. It wasn't about him not loving Damon back.

It was simply... not it.

Ric asked for a drink to the bartender, taking his eyes off Damon.

Whatever the feelings the vampire could or couldn't have for him, the hunter loved Jenna.

Her accepting him as he was had been such a relief. He seriously hoped it wasn't only the tension of the last events that had lead her to be more receptive. Maybe once everything would be finished, she'd think about it again. Maybe Jenna wouldn't want to live with a freaking natural born killer.

With Damon, at least, it would never be a problem.

Alaric took a sip of bourbon. He loved Jenna, that he was sure of.

But he wasn't certain that he didn't love Damon too.

Ric had never been interested in men. He wasn't against it, but he simply had never thought about a man the way he was currently thinking about his best friend. You love who you love, was what he had always believed. It being a man or a woman, you being a man or a woman, didn't matter. For now, Alaric had only loved women. Damon wasn't a woman. And here he was, thinking about him.

That was unexpected.

Once Gal had told him he was kind of incredible when it came to loving someone. That he was something of a love-extremist. He had laughed. But he knew she was right. He could do just anything for the sake of love. He had become a fucking vampire hunter for Isobel, he had given up on his promise not to kill ever again, for her. And, as long as he loved someone, he would never consider switching to somebody else.

The women he had loved weren't many. Maybe because he wasn't able to ever be unfaithful unless he didn't love them anymore, or they were dead. For now, he loved Jenna, and she was alive. He could never truly think about his friend this way as long as things stayed as they were.

And, to be honest, the thought of Damon loving him was so ridiculous he must have been delirious when it had come to his mind.

He'd better stop thinking about it.

Damon said something about how much of an idiot he had been, for doing what he had done. And a voice Ric would recognize anywhere, anytime, was heard behind them.

The hunter stiffened, listening to the voice of the man that had been reading a book in his loft this very morning. He understood threats were being made, but really couldn't grasp what was said.

When the Original that had stolen his body left, he clenched his hand so hard the glass he was holding broke into pieces. Glass splinters entered his skin, others fell on the bar counter with a crystal sound, and blood was jumbled with alcohol.

Damon looked at his wound with fear, and hurried to have him open his hand, as Ric wasn't moving at all despite the pain. The vampire winced when he saw glass sticking out of his palm and fingers, and tried to get them out.

“It will hurt a bit.”

It was all he could say.

Because right now, the only thing Damon wanted to do was to get those splinters out of the teacher's flesh, and then, to lick the blood until there'd be no more. He wanted to put his lips on Alaric's skin, to kiss it dry, to drink every drop of blood that could be stolen from the wound. He was eager to have his tongue running on the fingers, to soothe the pain with his mouth, to show the world how much he loved this man.

How much he desired Alaric, and not only his blood.

If he could kiss him until his lips were unable to sense anything else, Damon would have been content. But he knew he couldn't.

When the hunter's hand was freed from the splinters, although not from the wound, the vampire couldn't resist taking his own now bloody fingers to his lips, thinking Ric wasn't looking at him.

The face the vampire made when he tasted his blood, discreetly, truth to be told, but not discreetly enough for Alaric not to see, was enough of a giveaway.

Ric should have been angry that his best friend was using his wound as a mean to take a snack, but he couldn't. Damon didn't seem happy at all while tasting his blood. He seemed lost, about to cry, hurt, desperate. He didn't seem content, pleased with himself, amused.

The vampire's face was that of a man in love that can only try to touch that has been touched by his beloved, to breathe the air that has been breathed by the one he loves.

As ridiculous as it sounded, Damon Salvatore was enthralled by him.

Or if he wasn't, then someone should write a book about his ways of expressing feelings, because they were totally unheard of.

When Alaric turned his head to look openly at Damon, all evidences of love had disappeared.

The teacher paid for the broken glass and for his drink, and the bartender searched for band aids to give him. It wasn't the first time customers had trouble with shattered glass. Though, usually, it was someone breaking a bottle on another's head, or simply a glass falling to the ground, and not someone destroying their glass with sheer strenght.

“Maybe we should pay a visit to you apartment.”

Ric nodded.

He knew he couldn't talk about it when he wasn't able to give a positive answer to Damon.

This, this love, this situation, this relationship, they couldn't talk about it.

If they did, it'd destroy everything.

Not because they wouldn't be able to stay friends afterwards. Alaric and Damon weren't so selfish as to think the other had any choice in what he felt. But for a simple reason, that he didn't want to make his friend suffer more than he already did.

Ric didn't know which action was the best, telling or not telling, asking or not asking, talking or not talking. Maybe it was worse to stay silent. But for now, he couldn't find the courage to risk it.

They walked to his loft, not saying a word, too preoccupied with their mistakes, their errors, too busy searching for what they had done wrong, about them, about others, about the events, about their whole lives. The hunter invited Damon in, wondering how Klaus had been able to withstand the treshold barrier once he had been back in his own body. Maybe it had something to do with the witches he had brought with him.

Then he left Damon alone with Katherine. As his friend said, it was better for him not to know what he was planning.

As soon as the hunter was gone, the doppelganger switched the theme of the conversation to what was bothering her the most, aside from her future filled with torture.

“Does he know?”

Damon snorted. Of course, he knew what she was talking about.

“Does he know what?”

“Does he know that you confessed to Klaus thinking he was him?”

As hell he was going to say to his best friend that he loved him and had accidentaly confessed to the guy that had been hijacking his body.

“Shut your mouth.”

She made a it's-your-choice face, and went back to the main topic.

Damon had things to do. Rescuing Blondie, not being chewed upon by a werewolf, this one didn't exactly work out, telling Klaus he had, erm, done what he had been warned not to do, and this one didn't go well either.

When he woke up and understood what the Original had done to Jenna, the vampire thought he could as well kill himself right now, instead of waiting for the fatal hour to come. Eitherway, he had been bitten by a werewolf. He was dying. And because of that, Jenna would die too.

In the end, he had destroyed everything for Ric.

At least, when he'd be dead, he wouldn't have to dwell upon it anymore.

Or he hoped so, because if he had to, death would be hell.

Time passed, and Damon arrived to the house where the witches had been slaughtered.

His eyes met Alaric's, and he thought about all he had already lost. All they had already lost. Hope was only one of those things. Love wouldn't be the last.

When he left with Elijah and Bonnie, he felt bad for forcing the hunter to stay still, but he knew it was better for everyone. Or he wanted to believe it, maybe. After all, Alaric was a dangerous man. He wasn't to be taken lightly, not even for a vampire or a witch. Still, what could he do during a sacrifice? Not much. It was better if he stayed behind.

Ric was watching them from the main door, not saying a word. He didn't even try to go out.

When the vampire looked at him, frowning, he leaned against the doorpost.

“Don't be surprised, Damon. Did you really think I wouldn't feel it?”

The teacher gave the magic barrier that was keeping him, Jeremy and John from getting out a light tap, and used his other hand to hold onto his left shoulder. These last days, he had been exposed to way too much magic, and the seal reacted to almost any spell affecting him with a low and constant pain. With any luck, it would go back to its original state with a bit of rest.

But not for now. Now, he couldn't have missed even a tracking spell.

Then he went back in, and waited.

Time went by.

Damon called.

Jenna was dead.

Dead-dead, this time.

Alaric stood up, and went to see Jeremy.

He told him.

The teenager cried, and Alaric stayed for some time.

The spell was lifted, and Ric searched for a motel. He clearly couldn't go home, and wasn't in the mood to stay at Damon's, as he had been invited to do.

He sat on the bed. He wasn't in the mood to sleep either.

Isobel was dead. Before that, she had left him to become a vampire, faking her death. Then she had been a bitch, trying to act as if she had no humanity left. The switch, right. The vampire switch was bullshit. If not, she wouldn't have been jealous of Jenna.

Jenna was dead. She had accepted him for what he was, a freaking cursed man, and then she had died. Twice in a few hours. Each time, he hadn't been there for her.

“Elena lives. It's better than nothing, I guess.”

Better than nothing.

But maybe, if everybody died, it would be better. At least, there would be no more reason to be worried. Everyone, dead. The End.

He fell asleep.

 


	29. End it now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> set in 2x22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stefan... thank you very much.

There had been a funeral.

Jenna. John. Even Jules.

Funny that they all were “J”. Not so funny that they were dead.

Damon had watched Alaric, neutral face on, as he always did when he didn't want anyone to catch a glimpse of his true feelings. He had watched Elena, tired of all that. He hadn't cared enough to watch Tyler. After all, the werewolf had bitten him. Because Damon had been kind enough to free him too, and not only Caroline.

Soon there would be another funeral.

His own.

Well, he was most likely to be buried silently near the family vault. Stefan would tell everyone he was gone, since nothing was waiting for him in Mystic Falls. He'd say that, and everybody would believe he had only given up on Elena, and had left not to suffer from what he couldn't have. Ric would forget him with time, or maybe he'd wonder once in a while how came Damon had never come to visit. Stefan might tell them the truth, ten years later. Or twenty. Or the day of each of their friends' death, just before the fateful moment.

He had told Stefan so. His brother had promised they'd find a cure. As if there was one.

For now, the pain wasn't much. It hurt, sure, but he was still conscious. He hadn't begun to hallucinate. He knew he would, at some point.

Damon, a glass of bourbon in his hand, looked through the window.

The sky had this color, this normal, plain color. Same as always, when the weather was the same as this day's. Same as always, since his life had always been dramatic. Maybe grey. Maybe blue. Maybe white. Frankly, he didn't care. He looked. Didn't mean he saw.

There was nothing to be seen. No future. No prospects. No plans.

Damon was going to die, once more.

And this time, he'd die for good.

No love for him. He had had none, he had none, he would have none.

Maybe Damon Salvatore wasn't supposed to be loved.

He'd die alone.

Might as well end it now.

The vampire drank the last of his bourbon.

He put down his glass.

His fingers went to his daylight ring. It was cold. It had always been cold, heavy, not discreet at all.

Damon closed his eyes, and touched the lapis lazuli stone, with the silver “D” in the middle. “D”. Damon. Dumb. Desperate. Disappointing. Detestable. Disrespectful. Desillusioned. Disdainful. Dreaded. Damaged.

Dead.

Because all that mattered was that he'd be dead by tomorrow.

How pointless had his life been?

Damon opened his eyes. He went to the window, rested his forehead against the glass, and looked at the reflexion of his eyes. All he saw in it was tiredness. He took a step back.

The ring fell to the ground.

He waited for the sun to burn him to the bone.

It hurt. No matter. The vampire was used to being in pain, now. A little more, a bit less, it was all the same. Pain was pain. Pain was his life up to this point. And since he was dying, pain was his life and that was all. A summary of his life, written on a sheet of doom, with an ink of fate, had surely been drenched in pain, when the great book of the world had yet to be put together.

His skin was burning. Understatement of the year. He had this feeling that slow, hot, hungry worms where eating his flesh, starting from one point and then circling around his face, his hands, every part of his body that wasn't covered by clothes, leaving behind them a gaping hole.

He was near to catching fire.

The blood in his veins, so cold usually, heated up. A wave of warmth flowed from the veins to the heart to the arteries, and soon became a wave of heat, and then a wave of fire. Entering his heart, the burning blood flood collapsed against the heart valves.

Let's destroy this heart that made you so pitiful, Damon. You'll only feel better. Dead, but better.

A door slammed.

Thrown out of the daylight, Damon began to heal. Someone was pining him to the floor. He rose his eyes, and saw Stefan, angry as hell. His brother had saved his life, once again. And he had forced him to live, once again. Or at least he had tried to. Which was useless. There was no cure to the werewolves poison. Both of them knew it.

Stefan said something about not letting him die, about a promise, about what he owed him. Damon looked away.

Even if he could be saved, he had nothing to live for.

“Katherine never loved me. Elena will never love me. Alaric won't ever know I love him. What's the point to fight anymore?”

Stefan looked at him, bewildered. His face went from frowning to mouth wide open, to blank, to confused. Unless all of that was part of the confused face.

The younger Salvatore had heard something unbelievable. He had heard something about his brother being in love with his best friend. He had heard something about Damon loving a man. He had heard... more than being in love with a man, Damon being honest about it.

His grip loosened, but he reacted soon enough to punch his brother when he tried to go into the light once again.

Damon fell again, and his brother decided to lock him up in the basement, until he'd find a way to heal him. There had to be a way. Every magic had a loophole. Every rule had a weak point.

As long as Damon was alive, it had to be possible to save him.

Before leaving, he still needed to ask.

“Do you truly love Alaric?”

The words were so strange when he said them, but he didn't care. If his brother loved the teacher, then be it. He couldn't say he was disappointed to hear that Elena was all for him either. If Damon was in love with Alaric Saltzman, all of them would be happier. Unless Ric didn't want of him, of course. But that wasn't his juridiction.

Damon deserved to be loved. Stefan was aware his brother had to behave more than he did, but he wasn't such a bad guy. If only he could be loved back, for once in his life, maybe Damon would become a good guy. You're not a good guy when you're never allowed to be happy.

The older Salvatore, sitting against a wall of the cell, snorted.

He wasn't going to discuss his sexual orientation with Stefan, if that was what his brother wanted.

Frankly, he believed only Alaric could make him love a man.

Ric was so much more than just anyone. For decades he had believed he would only love Katherine. Elena wasn't to be taken into account. Sure, she was different from Katherine, but it was their likeness that had caught his attention in the first place. If she hadn't been the evil-and-selfish-hag's doppelganger, he might not have ever looked at her.

Alaric was worlds apart. Damon loved him because he loved him. Nothing more.

“Not your business.”

Stefan looked at the ceiling. Of course it wasn't. But Damon was dying. It wasn't as if he was asking him to be mean.

“Not mine, but Alaric's, for sure.”

Suddenly the older Salvatore was at the door, his hands on the cell bars.

“You won't dare to!”

“To what, Damon?”

Stefan took a step back, and reached for his phone. He dialed the hunter/his brother's crush/his history teacher/Elena's sort-of-stepfather's number. If ever Alaric went out with Damon, he wouldn't know how to call him anymore, but eitherway.

“Fuck, Stefan! I'm dying! Whatever the outcome, it won't do any good!”

Damon's voice was almost shattering. There was fear, incredibly strong fear, in his voice. Stefan almost hung up when he heard it. His brother wasn't usually so frightened to get what he wanted most in the world. Maybe that was because this time, he cared so much he couldn't bear to risk it.

Stefan surprised himself thinking it might be a good thing if Damon and Alaric actually dated.

The teacher picked up his phone.

Apparently, he had had a lot of drinks during the day. Who could blame him?

This time too, Stefan almost changed his mind. Was he really willing to give them a chance when Ric already had a broken heart to heal, when Damon was about to die? If his brother could tell the teacher how much he loved him, which wasn't sure at all, what would happen? Would Alaric welcome this heart? Maybe he wouldn't. Hopefully, neither him or Damon were likely to fall in love with each other. If Damon had nonetheless, maybe there was hope. And then what? Happily ever after? Damon was still dying. The power of love was great and all, but Stefan wasn't really positive it would be powerful enough to save an infected vampire. This wasn't a lovey dovey sappy romance novel. Love was powerful, indeed, but not for this kind of situations.

Anyway, he needed someone to keep an eye on his brother while he'd search for a cure. Alaric Saltzman, history teacher, Damon's best friend, vampire hunter on occasion, was a perfect fit.

Confessing or not was up to Damon.

Stefan warned Ric of his brother's state, and surprisingly the drunkness in the man's voice disappeared. Actually, it was a bit creepy. As if every feeling had been shut down to leave room for seriousness. It was surely the phone that made him hear that. Because if it wasn't, it was creepy.

Stefan hang up.

He looked at his brother, coughing blood in his cell, the infection on his arm growing bigger with time. He had to hurry and find a way to save Damon.

“You stay here. Ric's on his way.”

“Where would you want me to go, seriously? You locked the cell, if you forgot.”

“Sorry, my bad. I should have said: You stay alive. If I come back and find you dead, I'll resent you for the rest of eternity. Same thing if you ask Alaric to kill you.”

Damon grinned, but it was a grin of despair. He didn't know such a thing existed before. You learn something new everyday, even the day of your death.

“He'll have to, at some point. Unless you want him to die instead, while I'll go rabid and slaughter every soul that crosses my path?”

Stefan rolled his eyes. It wasn't funny, and Damon knew it.

The older Salvatore watched him as he left.

Maybe he should try and rip his own heart out?

Sadly, he wasn't sure he could pull such a stunt. At some point, his hand would let go, as life would be leaving him. Then he'd begin to heal. Damned accelerated healing.

And Stefan, who had called Ric.

As if he hadn't enough to deal with.

Death wasn't enough of a punishment, maybe.

The vampire sighed.

He knew his brother only wanted to help him. But Stefan was convinced he could find a cure, when there was none. Even if there was one, they had less than a day to do so. They wouldn't make it.

Confessing to Alaric would only make things worse.

A dying man's confession was only selfishness.

It'd be better if he kept his mouth shut.

It'd be better if his soon-to-come hallucinations let him be quiet about his feelings.

He hoped so.

He had already confessed to the wrong person once, he wasn't going to do a hallucinated confession of love on top of that.

Damon heard footsteps coming from the ground floor. Certainly Alaric's.

As he listened to their sound, a steel grip seized his heart. It was cold, it was strong, it was merciless. He knew what it was. It was love.

Maybe he'd die from a heart attack? It would have been nice if he could. But vampires didn't die from heart attacks, did they? If he had, he could have bragged that love had killed him. Again.

 


	30. As seconds nudged one another

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually have no idea whether this is any good.  
> Like Damon, I'm sick, and I've barely slept three hours last night.  
> Hope it's not so bad.  
> I mean, the writing, not the story.  
> My stories are always horrible.

Alaric walked down the stairs.

He still was unsure of what to do with Damon's feelings. What he knew, on the other side, was that his friend had said nothing, and that maybe, it would be for the best if they stayed silent about it. After all, a cure to the werewolfves' poison was unheard of. The vampire was going to die.

He stopped by the basement fridge and filled a glass with blood.

From what he knew, Damon would need it.

When he arrived to the cell door, his best friend was sitting in his cell, chin falling on his torso, eyes gazing onto the ground. He obviously had heard him coming, but wasn't reacting to his presence.

Ric thought of staying outside, but chose not to.

The teacher entered the cell, which he locked back, glass of blood in hand. He looked at Damon for half a minute, and, as the vampire was still ignoring him stubbornly, he crouched down and handed him the glass.

“Now, you drink.”

Damon snorted and looked away.

Hell, Ric could be as stubborn as the vampire was if he wanted to.

Moving to face Damon, Alaric placed the glass just under his friend's nose, looking him in the eyes.

“Not letting you die before time is up.”

The vampire averted his gaze once more.

This was getting annoying. Damon wanted to play this game? Change of rules.

Alaric grabbed a handful of black hair, and forced the glass to the vampire's mouth. His friend gapped with surprise, and his eyes went to the blue and fierce eyes that were the hunter's. All he saw in them was concern.

Damon swallowed the blood with difficulty, some bordering his mouth with a red color. Already Ric was forcing him to take another sip, tilting the glass horizontal.

The vampire gulped, then decided it was enough.

He didn't want to see the hunter right now, he didn't want to see anyone, he wanted to die alone without killing anyone else, without killing any of the people he cared for, without killing Alaric. He wished for it to end, one or two hallucinations, and then going rabid, alone in a locked cell, and then death. He hoped he could have a deaths clean death, if he couldn't get a clean death.

“Go away.”

Alaric's grip on his hair tightened. It hurt a bit, but it was nothing. Blessed the accelerate regeneration. Hell, even blessed the werewolf bite. It was nothing compared to the pain the werewolf bite was inflicting him.

Ludicrous.

Public vampires notification: let's all be bitten by a werewolf! It'll end your worries for good.

“Not an option, Damon. You know that already, don't you?”

What the hell was that supposed to mean, exactly?

He hadn't yet swallowed all the blood he had in his mouth. He was stronger than his friend. He was the shitty vampire frantic killer of Mystic Falls, wasn't he?

If that was what it'd take to have the teacher leaving, he'd do it. Maybe the hunter would even stake him, ending it now. Frankly, that would be for the best, if things turned out that way.

Damon winced when some of his hair got pulled out as he outdid Ric, but he pushed the man against the cell far wall and vamped out.

Blood was dripping from his mouth, anger was lurking in his eyes.

“I told you to go away!”

Alaric watched his best friend threatening him with a neutral face. It wasn't that he was hiding his emotions. It was simply that he wasn't afraid. Or curious. Or anything. He knew it was all an act, even though the anger was genuine. The vampire wasn't actually trying to hurt him. He wasn't yet going rabid either, or he wouldn't have stopped. He only wanted to scare him away.

Good luck frightening a freaking Falkenbach with so little acting. Maybe, if he hadn't known vampires were real. But he knew. So it wasn't unexpected. Anyway, even the unexpected could barely scare a Saltzman. It would merely disturb him a bit.

He was interested, at best. That Damon would go to such lenghts to get rid of him meant a lot.

The teacher sighed.

“I wanted time to think about it, but hell, we don't have that anymore.”

Without any other warning, Alaric freed his right arm with his human yet unusual strenght, and got a hold of Damon's, roughly pulling him closer. His hand then moved to the vampire's back, his arm preventing him from moving.

Damon's lips crushed on his own, slightly parted.

Ric sneaked his tongue between the teeth, forcing the vampire to open his mouth a bit more, and he began to truly kiss him with an eagerness that kept Damon silent. Not that he would have broken the kiss to talk, anyway. It felt too wonderful to do that. He closed his eyes.

Alaric's chest felt broad and strong against his own, Alaric's hand on his back was pressing its fingers as if it was trying to tear his shirt apart, Alaric's tongue was hot and wet and fucking explorating his mouth.

Maybe it was time to respond to that enthusiasm?

Not believing this was actually happening, Damon kissed him back, all teeth and tongue, forgetting he was still wearing his vampire face.

The hunter didn't mind. It wasn't a human face, but who said he was human enough to care? Human body, certainly, but the mind... His mind was that of a demon, of a reaper. Falkenbach. Saltzman. Eitherway. He didn't deserve to be called human, even though he was one.

Eyes half-closed, looking at the dark veins on Damon's face through his lashes, he couldn't help thinking how great it felt to love someone who was at least as dangerous and deadly as he was. No need to watch out for what he couldn't say, no need to be afraid the other wouldn't understand.

No need to worry.

As for their kiss, it was getting all bloody. The little fright-and-scare-game Damon had tried to pull hadn't worked, but that changed nothing to the fact the vampire hadn't drunk half of the blood he had taken into his mouth. Luckily, Alaric didn't care much about blood. It had this metallic taste, but it wasn't disgusting or anything. It was only liquid, and what, bloody. His family's legacy didn't care about blood. Try to be a killer who's bothered by blood. A bit difficult. Especially when you're using not only poisons but blades and bullets and fists too.

A droop of blood rolled down Ric's chin, leaving a dark read trail on his skin.

Damon heard their two heartbeats, throbbing almost in unison. Faster, faster, to make up for the time they wouldn't get together.

Then he felt Ric's tongue against his fangs, and remembered.

The vampire waited another second, and broke the kiss. Alaric kind of growled out of discontent.

Damon loved how he looked, so pleased with himself and with their kiss, so handsome, simply, so perfect. Perfect for him, perfect for them.

Damon frowned.

Why was Ric all bloody?

The vampire licked his own lips, and frowned again.

Here was the answer. Because he had had blood all over his mouth while they had been kissing. Damon might have felt a bit ashamed for thinking Alaric looked downright hot with blood on his face, if the hunter hadn't looked just so damn hot.

“Are you stealing my blood away from my mouth?”

“No idea what you're mumbling about.”

Ric grinned a bloody grin and kissed him once more.

Both of their hearts accelerated, but it was only a chaste kiss. Yet, Alaric had taken advantage of the situation and put his hands on Damon's hips, and pulled him closer again, so close they were feeling the curves and angles of each other's body, so close their noses were filled with each other's scent.

So close their bodies tensed as their hearts softened.

The scent was becoming more and more that of sexual need as seconds nudged one another, in a hurry to witness the outcome, to see if they could possibly be extended and delay the fatal hour.

The teacher let him free, and rested the back of his head against the wall.

“I must be a bit drunk.”

Damon's heart flinched to this line.

Sure. Ric was drunk. Maybe a bit saddened to know his best friend was dying, troubled by his ex-wife's and his girlfriend's deaths, and now he was acting reckless, without meaning it.

Or worse. Maybe it had begun, Damon was hallucinating. Maybe he was alone in the cell, and all that was him being pitifully unhappy for the short rest of his lifetime.

“I'm pretty sure I'm usually a better kisser than that.”

Damon's heart missed a beat.

Maybe...

Maybe there was hope. Maybe this was real.

“You...”

The teached cocked his head to the right.

“I what?”

Damon took a long breath. He couldn't believe he was going to ask that.

“You really meant it? This kiss, this...”

Alaric interrupted him, smirking in amusement.

“You really think I'm the kind of guy who kiss ramdom people the day after his girlfriend's death?”

Put it that way, the question was indeed a bit dull.

“And frankly, Damon, if I had let you do as you please, we'd never gotten to it. I'm aware I was kind of slow noticing how you look at me, but once I did, there was no going back. I truly loved Jenna, I'll always love her, but she is dead, and there is no going back from that. You, on the other hand, are still alive. You obviously love me. And from how I reacted to this kiss that I initiated, since you're so surprisingly useless at confessing for a guy who flirt with anyone from breakfast to dinner, I'm pretty certain you can tell I love you back.”

Ignoring the comment about confessing, because there was no need to go and tell Ric about the failed attempt from the other day, Damon's heart jolted in his chest at those words... and he coughed up blood that stained a bit more the hunter's chin and shirt.

“Alive... not for long. You should try to... search for a person who's not actually... dying, when you'll be single again. Which is likely to be very soon.”

Alaric closed his eyes. It was no time to think about that. Stefan would find a way. And if he didn't, he would only have to add another mark of doom in his love life. Stefan would find a way.

Stefan would find a way.

He patted Damon's head gently.

Stefan would find a way.

“I'll get you a blood bag.”

The vampire sat on the cell bed, nodding absently. This was surreal. Not only Alaric had figured out his feelings for him, but he also had welcomed them.

He was still dying, the pain was still there, but he felt so great, so comfortable...

He didn't want to die anymore.

Damon hadn't really wanted to die in the first place, but as he was convinced he would never get anything else out of his life, and surely not love, he had sort of given up. Or maybe given in.

Voices caught his attention. He knew two of these. Alaric's.

And Liz Forbes'.

As he stood up, his head started to pin, he felt dizzy, and the world betrayed him. It was all a hallucination, certainly, that his infected mind was casting upon him, to make him believe he could have his happy ending. The door to the cell opened, he threw Liz against a wall, because, right, she was merely a hallucination, and ran away. He had to find Ric. The real Ric. Because this one too was a hallucination, he knew that all too well. Damon Salvatore would never get his love back. Never.

Alaric stayed still, guns pointed at him, while a sick Damon rushed out surprising everyone.

Elizabeth Forbes walked out of the cell, holding her head.

“Aren't you ashamed of yourself?! You're helping a monster to kill innocent people!”

“We already have had this conversation, sheriff. You only don't remember it.”

 


	31. Wait a bit more

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo... I'm pretty sure Damon's hallucination is me. How the hell did I end up there?

The youngest deputy was shaking a little. That surprised Alaric, but then he remembered his own face was covered in blood. As if he had himself drank some. Which wasn't exactly false. Though it had been accidental. Not his fault if Damon hadn't drunk everything, was it?

Elizabeth Forbes walked through the room to look him in the eyes, but stopped dead in her tracks when she noticed the blood. Were they all going to be a pain in the ass because of three tiny drops of blood? The teacher had better things to do. Such as, preventing Damon from killing a bunch of innocent people in his delirious state. Or preventing Damon from attacking random people because he was going rabid. Or even preventing Damon from going on a raving killing spree.

Exactly what he had been doing until now. Right, while kissing, and so what? Had they not interrupted them, everything would have been under control.

“Don't start freaking out now. Damon's sick, he coughed on me, end of story. I'm perfectly human.”

And perfectly cursed. And maybe the natural enemy of any police officer. But Alaric wasn't going to say that out loud. They had enough problems without him being in the crosshairs of the sheriff department for being a natural born killer.

The youngest deputy, who wasn't stupid but wasn't patient either, lost, obviously, patience.

“Vampires don't get sick! And if that one wasn't sick, then you must be one too!”

The teacher sighed, starting to get impatient.

“Vampires get deadly sick when they are bitten by a werewolf. And if you're really trying to overawe me, stop trembling already, or I'll just seize the opportunity...”

And that's exactly what he did.

When the youngster tried to get a better hold of his gun, Alaric lunged forward, caught his wrist and forced him to let go of the weapon. At the same time, he spinned on his left heel and placed the deputy between him and his colleagues.

He heard four safeties being undone a short moment after the gun fell on the ground with a loud sound. No choice, then. It wasn't playing nice, but the Falkenbach couldn't really care.

Alaric pushed the young man on the other deputies. They took a step back, their eyes locked on their colleague for a second, which he used to overtake them. By the time they were aware of him being so close and raising their guns again, he had knocked out one of them, and twisted another's wrist. He was strangling him unconscious when the last deputy bypassed his fainted colleague to shot the hunter.

From the angle, Ric could say it wouldn't be a courtesy shot, in the air, in the leg, or anything like that. More likely, straight to the chest, even the heart, if any luck. So he let go of his victim, who fell flat on the floor, and kicked his attacker's arm hard enough to have him let go of his gun. Then he reiterated, but this time, kicked the man in the stomach.

The deputy fell to the ground with a painful growl, leaving only the sheriff and the youngest deputy conscious to do anything. But they were pretty astonished, and needed time to react. Which Alaric wasn't willing to grant them. Quickly, keeping an eye on his opponents, he picked up two of the free guns from the ground where they had fallen, all thanks to him.

“So, what were we talking about? Right, the fact that I'm definitely not a vampire.”

Elizabeth Forbes was looking at him with eyes wide open, still not sure of what had happened.

This was the high school history teacher, right? So why was he able to beat three people in a trice?

And she was sure he could have handled her too, if she had been able to do anything more than holding her gun right. Because he was definitely aware she was still shaking on her legs from her unexpected meeting with a wall, only minutes before.

“What the hell are you?!”

Ric slightly turned to take a look at the young deputy, still looking terrorized.

“Is he a rookie?”

“Yes, and so what?”

The teacher rolled his eyes then looked at him with might have been pity if he hadn't been dead serious. Alaric relaxed a bit, because, really, he had no reason to be so tense, and took a step towards the youngster.

“So, you can't go after vampires if you're barely holding it together. What, you can't even go after me, a mere human! Though I'm as dangerous as a human can be, I guess.”

The young man was so focused on not letting his eyes wander off from his opponent's eyes, alarmingly blank-though-blue eyes, that he didn't notice the fist until it was too late. He fell unconscious, as the others. Which left only the sheriff to deal with, before going after Damon.

“You really need to train them better, you know.”

Elizabeth gulped, but tried to sound confident.

“What are you planning to do, now? Kill us?”

She didn't know if she believed he would or not, but the fact that the man looked at her with only emptiness in his eyes, not even concerned, not the slightest amusement in his gaze, gave her the chills. She'd rather have seen anything in these eyes, even hartred, even madness, even pleasure, if the choice had been hers. She'd have liked it better, even if that had meant they were going to die.

Alaric Saltzman was able to kill them. And he was ready to. Worse, in fact. He didn't care. At all.

Worse than any psychopath. Not even enjoying the killing. Which was terrifying. If she was right, he was more of a monster than any monster, and yet less of a monster than any monster. He was human, but had no soul. Or lacked, at least, a part of it.

Even monsters had souls.

“Do I need to?”

The question was genuine. He already knew the answer. She knew he knew it. She wouldn't answer.

Alaric waited a bit, then decided it was enough. He still had a more-or-less-boyfriend to catch, chain and watch die. Which wasn't to his liking, at all. But what could he do about it?

“Think a little, sheriff. If you are here, then you surely know your daughter is a vampire too. Is she any different? Did the number of bodies went up after she turned? Maybe you know she killed a young man, the first time she went out after her turning. You do? Perfect. She died. She killed a human being. She's not the daughter you knew anymore. Caroline is a bloodsucking monster. Why aren't you killing her instead, sheriff? What are you doing here, sheriff Forbes?”

Elizabeth stiffened. She didn't want to hear. She didn't want to hear that.

“Why aren't you killing your own daughter, sheriff Forbes?”

His voice was so inexpressive, it was so rational, she knew he was right. Why wasn't she killing Caroline, instead of going to kill Damon Salvatorefirst?

She dropped her gun. Her voice was trembling, and tears were rolling down her cheeks.

“Because she's my beautiful baby daughter.”

Alaric put his weapons down. He was enough of a weapon himself, anyway.

He smiled.

“There, you know why. It took less effort than last time.”

He dragged the unconscious deputies in the cell, waited for her to enter on her own, and locked the door.

“Take away their vervain. Ask Stefan to erase their memories when he'll come back. We're trying to keep the body count low, but it's not always easy. Oh, and he can erase yours too, or Caroline can do it, like last time, if you want it that way.”

Liz didn't even think twice about it. Matt had told her she had already been compelled, but he hadn't said it had been her choice. Maybe it hadn't exactly been. Maybe he didn't know.

“I'll keep my memories. We've seen what happens when I don't. I'll live with it.”

She cast a glance over her deputies. This time, they were alive. Maybe they wouldn't next time, if she chose to take the easy way out.

Alaric went away. It was time to go after Damon.

As he arrived in town, he saw Elena and the others, completely panicked. A deputy had seen Damon, tried to shoot him, and Jeremy had taken a bullet. He was with Bonnie, but no one knew if he'd make it.

The teacher bit his lower lip. He had to find Damon. Quickly.

When he finally spotted him, the vampire was alone in a field, not far away from the lively town center, with its constant party going on. Standing feverishly, gazing upon vacancy, talking to himself as if he was actually talking to someone, Damon was definitely delirious.

Who the hell was this girl, and why was she talking to herself in the middle of a battlefield?

The young Confederate Soldier was watching the now deserted battlefield. Deserted? Not so much.

He was there, and he wasn't alone. There was a girl, standing in the middle, not looking at him, at the corpses under her shoes, or at anything, really, only waving about a stick while talking out loud, things about death, about pain, about sacrifice, maybe. He wasn't sure. He couldn't hear her well.

It wasn't the time to idle about. He had to find Katherine. But... he didn't know Katherine, not yet. Still. He had to go. He needed to see Alaric.

...Who was Alaric? It was 1864. He did not know anyone by the name of Alaric.

Yet, he needed to see him. He knew that.

He was about to go, even if he had no idea where to, when he understood what she was saying.

It might have been because she had finally noticed him.

“Give me a blade to cut my head, give me poison to end my life, give me a rope to hang myself. But be it gentle, for I fear pain. May death be soft, or at least quick. I am not known to be reckless, neither I am to be dauntless. My oath is taken: they will comply, and in the end, Sadness will win.”

He was going to tell her she didn't make any sense. But he wasn't making any sense either. It was all a hallucination. He had forgotten.

Ric. Where was Ric?

The girl, no, the young woman, maybe, he wasn't certain of anything right now, smiled softly and looked him in the eyes.

“Too much drama, right? But it's more interesting that way.”

She smiled one last time, and he felt hands on his arms.

“Don't worry. You'll be happy one day. You only have to wait a bit more.”

She disappeared. And he woke up in his bed, bathed in sweat, Alaric lying down next to him.

“What...?!”

Ric smiled poorly.

“Stefan hasn't called back. You're dying. For good.”

“You... deserve... better than... me, anyway. I'm the inhumane... monster. You'll... get... over me.”

Ric closed his eyes. His smile wasn't a hurt smile, not exactly. He was sad because he wouldn't get to see Damon anymore. Not because the one he loved was dying. Mourning had never been a Saltzman thing.

“Humanity is about feelings. Any kind of feelings.”

Damon was humane, even though he wasn't human. Somehow, at least.

Alaric wasn't humane, even though he was human. Somehow, at least.

Damon closed his eyes. He was dying. He knew it, more than he had ever known in the last hours.

Death was coming for him.

Maybe the hunter thought the vampire was already gone. Maybe he believed he was asleep. Eitherway, he left, only saying this. Damon tried to respond, but he couldn't talk loud enough.

“I didn't get to save Jenna. I won't get to save you either. I didn't get to see her die. I won't stay to see you die. Too many blows to my heart, too many wounds in my flesh. I'd want to stay, to take care of the kids. I'll never be able to do so. I'd be of no use if I stayed, carpet-like. So I'm on my way.”

“Ric...”

“I'd have loved you, Damon.”

The hunter closed the door. That was the end of it.

“I do... love... you, Alaric.”

“Well! That was sweet. Not that I care, but good for you, Damon.”

Damon might have been startled, if he had been in any state to think. He only understood it was Katherine speaking. What she was doing here, he didn't know. He didn't care. She talked, he didn't understand. She made him drink some blood, which he reluctantly accepted. And then he felt that everything was alright. He wasn't going to die.

“Now, go after him, you fool.”

Damon didn't ask why. He went. He had to find Alaric, even if he was still barely standing.

Katherine turned on her heels. She had to leave town as quickly as possible. Half a world wasn't enough distance between Klaus and her.

 


	32. It wasn't his wish

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, if any of you still had doubts, yes, I am the worst.

Slow, way too slow.

He was going way too slowly.

Damon might have considered it funny, how a vampire who was supposed to be able to run miles in a heartbeat, was not being able to walk straight after a tiny werewolf's bite. He might have, if only Alaric hadn't said he would leave town soon. If only their relationship wasn't coming to an end right after it had begun, because he had been dying, but was no more. If only his time to get to his now boyfriend wasn't running out as he was wasting time trying to put one foot in the right direction, then doing it again with the other foot.

The cure.

It was real.

Sure, Damon was still feeling dizzy.

Hell, the world was even spinning around him.

But he was alive, and getting better by the minute.

He and Alaric could be together. Both of them were alive, both of them wanted the other one to be with him, both of them loved the other one. They could spend their life together.

Maybe more than one, actually.

Damon shook his head. This talk would have to wait.

What mattered, for now, was to stop Alaric from leaving.

The vampire tripped down, and felt the ground against his nose and cheeks without being able to get back on his feet. The concrete was cold, the road was hard, and he was certain a car could come any moment and crush his head.

Head crushed, no more Damon.

Would be ironic, to die from dizziness and a car accident after surviving the werewolf's poison.

And no fun at all.

The vampire crawled as he could to the pavement, and finally managed to sit up. But he still couldn't walk, he was aware of it. So he waited.

As his mind was becoming clearer, he remembered what Katherine had told him, that he hadn't understood at first. Stefan had sold himself to Klaus to get the cure. And had gone back to his ripper state. Which wasn't a good new.

How came his little brother was always doing what he shouldn't in order to save Damon's life?

Why was everyone hating him, and still doing so that he'd stay around and screw someone's life?

He had to get Stefan back. If not for him, at least for Elena.

And for that, he needed to get Ric back.

Everything would be alright, if Alaric was with him. He would be alright, Stefan would be alright, the kids would be alright. Damon only needed the teacher back, and it would do.

It wasn't easy, but Damon stood up again, and walked to the Mystic Grill. He could do it. He could be in time to stop Ric from leaving everything behind. Or...

...Or he could call him.

Right. Why hadn't he had the idea before? Being dizzy was making him stupid, apparently.

The vampire messily searched for his cellphone, hoping he hadn't left it at home.

There it was. Now, Ric's number. Right here. Calling...

Sitting at the Grill, a suitcase waiting next to him, not much, really, because he could get someone to go and ask for his belongings later, Alaric was drinking his last glass of the town's rotgut, since he was in no mood to have anything nice, when his cellphone buzzed.

He considered ignoring it, but still took a look.

The hunter gnashed his teeth when he saw who was the caller.

It wasn't fun. At all.

And even if it wasn't a prank call, what good would it do if he picked it up?

Hello, Alaric, it's Stefan / Elena / anybody-else-he-really-couldn't-care-much. Just wanted to tell you that... Well, you guessed already, I suppose, but Damon's dead. Sorry to ruin your life once more, and bye, I hope to see you in class next week.

Or maybe this:

Ric, I'm so sorry, but Jeremy died too.

The teacher winced so hard it hurt. Never before a wince had hurt. He didn't even knew it could.

So he left the phone to ring as much as it wanted, and gulped the last sip of terrible alcohol.

A moment before he stood up and left, someone sat down on the bar stool next to him.

The hunter tensed.

“Alaric.”

A tear fell from his left eye directly in his glass.

How could he have even though it would be him?

Damon was dead, dead, or as good as dead. As everyone else. As Jenna. As Isobel. And as a lot of other people he had forgotten, and as a lot of other people he didn't want to think about right now.

When he turned to face the woman that had called his name, the woman he certainly knew, he still had the trail of the tear on his face, but that was all. Maybe he looked a bit tired. But he didn't look sad, grieving or anything.

“Cassandre had warned me you would come for me, Landyn. But I didn't believed you would be here in person.”

His aunt was as incredible as ever.

She wasn't exactly beautiful. She wasn't wearing anything flashy. She wasn't tall, she wasn't short either. You could have said she was average. But she clearly wasn't.

Landyn Saltzman wasn't a dashing woman. Still, she was beautiful. Every single thing, in its rightful place. Nose. Eyes. Forehead. Lips. Jaw. Neck. In fact, there was nothing beautiful about her, except her whole being. Just what was needed not to be noticed so much as to fail an assassination.

Freaking Saltzmans.

As always, she was wearing clothes that surely cost an arm and a leg, but weren't so eye-catching.

It wasn't surprising. They were all this way, at the main house.

Alaric frowned. She wasn't alone. He glanced behind her, and sighed.

“And you took Andrea and Othaniell with you. Worried I might not want to go home?”

The two youngsters were Landyn's children, and, unlike their elder sister, they had chosen to stay at the main house, even once responsible adults. As far as Ric was concerned, that made them the exact opposite of responsible adults.

“I know you don't want to come back, and, as much as I'm not pleased with your decision, I intended to respect it. But the police is suddenly interrested in us, and that is not safe for any of us.”

“Surely there is a reason for them to dig into our darkest secrets?”

“Frederic is in jail.”

Frederic? That was unexpected. He had always been one of the nicest Saltzmans. He would never have chosen to stay with the family. Alaric wasn't even aware that he had already killed someone.

“He was traveling, and was attacked by a mugger in Turkey. He fought back, and guess what happened...”

The teacher could very well imagine. A dead mugger, in a dangerous place. Story of their lifes.

“The seal?”

Landyn stiffened, and looked at him with warry eyes.

“I'm talking about the scar. You know, the thing that prevent us from becoming soulless killers?”

“We managed. But how do you know it's a seal?”

So she had known. For years, probably. And she didn't want the others to know, as she had talked very low.

Not that he cared. He surely didn't know half of the family secrets.

“Let's say I've met all kinds of people lately. And there's surely more to it than Frederic's arrest. I can't do anything about it, and I heard you've already sent people to take care of it.”

The trip to Italy that his father and uncle had gone on lately was proof enough. Italy wasn't Turkey, but it was the country where Frederic's father, their cousin, lived for twenty years already.

Landyn lowered her voice while answering. Their family business wasn't exactly something you could talk about lightly at a bar counter.

“A copycat is using Theodoric's modus operandi all over the world.”

“Which one?”

“Mobile Maker.”

Great. The bloodiest one.

“I guess you want me to investigate?”

“And to erase him.”

And to erase him. Of course. Erasing. If ever he decided to change his line of work to become a killer, he'd call himself the Eraser. It would be hilarious.

A door slammed. Ric didn't pay it any attention.

“I won't take “no” as an answer.”

Landyn. Always so imperious. Almost sixty. Still dangerous as hell.

Never mind. Alaric had no reason to stay in Mystic Falls. His life had already been shattered.

“And I will comply. The woman I love died yesterday, and the man I might be in love with will die before the morning. Maybe it is time for me to go.”

Landyn said nothing about him loving a man. When you're part of a centuries old family of killers, you don't stop to such tiny details as sexual orientation. Nothing could be worse than killing without feelings. They all knew that. No one cared about who they loved, as long as the lover wasn't a threat to the family. Ric snorted. Damon, a threat upon a family of killers? Hilarious.

He stood up, paid for his drinks, and took his suitcase.

“Shall we go? I don't really care about anything right now, so you might as well want to take the opportunity to lecture me about my decision to stay away from our damned family...”

“You were one of the best, Alaric. You could have done so much. Yet you chose not to. How can I overlook that?”

The hunter rolled his eyes. Yes, he had been one of the best. He still was.

And she knew it. Not only his mind hadn't changed at all during those years he had been away, but he had obviously gone back to training. This much musculature, this much strength, couldn't be due to a daily, normal life. She said nothing, but both of them knew something had happened, when Isobel had gone missing. They knew he had gone back to using his abilities. Maybe she didn't know who he had been killing, or what exactly, but she knew he wasn't any different than the other Saltzmans.

A killer in a bunch of killers, basically.

When they finally left, Alaric met Galswinthe's eyes. Their ancestor had heard everything, sitting in a corner of the Mystic Grill. She was obviously sad.

When Damon entered the Grill, he searched for Alaric.

Elena, Jeremy, the other kids were all here.

The girl looked at him with wide eyes, and even hugged him, which was unheard of. She was so glad he was alive. Even Caroline was a bit relieved.

But Ric wasn't here.

And he wasn't the only one to have noticed. Elena, when she let go of him, looked around.

“Somebody knows where Ric is?”

Damon tensed. A hand touched his shoulder.

He turned around. Saw Gal. Shooed the kids away.

The older vampire ordered them a drink. She wanted to talk to him, and asked him not to interrupt.

“I understand things have evolved between you two? It's good, really. A Falkenbach knows nothing about death, they're immune to it. It also means they can't mourn or grieve. He won't ever be all right if he's alone, now that his girlfriend is dead. It was already the same with Isobel. So, you only can help him. Alaric needs you. Now. But he believes you are dead. And he went back to Boston. He went back to the family. You have to get him back, if you really love him.”

Damon understood what it meant. Ric was gone. And...

He tried to call the teacher once more. Grew pale when a cellphone buzzed next to them, on the bar counter. Left behind by a man who wanted to get rid of his life.

Somewhere else, Landyn, two of her children and Alaric were silently looking at a grave.

“It smells like burnt flesh.”

“Isobel burnt here not long ago, that's why.”

No one said anything.

Now that he had come here, the hunter could leave. It wasn't his wish. But he needed to.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obviously, to be continued.  
> In something like... one or two months. 'cause I have exams in less than a month, and I still need to think how the next part will play out exactly. Bye ~~~


End file.
